Chuck Hall was 23 when he volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the force of Americans defending the left-wing government of Spain against fascist insurrection in 1937. Hall, whose father was a schoolteacher, had finished three years at the University of Chicago, but the Depression had forced him into a factory job when he learned of Francisco Franco’s military revolt against the newly elected Republicans. “It was a time when people got radicalized very rapidly,” he recalls, “because of the situation in the country, and also because the danger of fascism was great, starting with Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, then Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. And then every time you went to the movies you saw Hitler standing in front of some 10,000 people, proclaiming that he was gonna conquer the world.”
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Hall and Chicago’s other four surviving brigadistas will be honored this weekend at a program hosted by Roosevelt University. “Spain in the Heart: 1936-1996” will feature a lecture by Stanford historian Peter Carroll; the documentary film You Are History, You Are Legend, about last year’s celebration; and a performance of songs and poems by Jamie O’Reilly and Michael Smith. It takes place Saturday at 7:30 at Roosevelt University, 430 S. Michigan. Tickets are $20; for reservations, phone 773-769-2665. –J.R. Jones
