Caliber Comics has announced the upcoming release of the graphic novel, The Lincoln Brigade. Written by Pablo Durá, illustrated by Carles Esquembre, and edited by Andrea Lorenzo Molinari, this graphic novel depicts the little known, but true story of a group of American volunteers standing up against fascism and willing to face death in order to prevent it from swallowing Spain.

The Lincoln Brigade focuses on Oliver Law, an African American who fought and protested for worker rights in the 1930s United States. Law and other black American citizens volunteered on their own to go to Spain, first heading to France and then smuggling themselves across the border, and with little training, fighting in the Spanish Civil War against the fascist faction leader, General Francisco Franco. Law would eventually go on to lead the entire brigade army, integrated with both black and white soldiers, into combat. In the end, a third of them would ultimately lose their lives against the German and Italian-backed Franco forces.

Law’s assumption of command of the brigade took place 10 years before black and white soldiers were integrated in the US Army by President Harry S. Truman in 1948, to say nothing of any military group being led by a soldier of color.