ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes Josephine Baker’s significance for Spanish culture and society. Drawing on periodical sources, it examines her reception and representation in the press after she became a star in Paris and during her subsequent visit to Spain in 1930. The book explores the only scandalized response to Baker in Spain, which took place in Pamplona. It examines two main factors: first, the connection black brigadiers established between European Fascism and US white supremacy; second, Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, which prompted a Pan-African commitment to fighting fascism in the African country. The book addresses again the intertwining of anti-American and Hispanidad discourses, but at a later stage of Francoism. It explores the representation of the African American emancipation movement across a selection of articles published in the 1960s in the Falangist newspaper Arriba, the official voice of Francoism.
