Arnold Donawa: civil-rights advocate, activist

Ray Funk
MANY Trinidadians have risked their lives in service of others. Some have been memorialised; others are little known.
One who is not well known is Dr Arnold Donawa, a dental surgeon and outspoken advocate for the rights of Africans, African Americans, and working people.
Not just an advocate, he risked hs life during the Spanish Civil War for his heartfelt beliefs in a life of commitment and service.
Born in Trinidad in 1899, he went to the US in 1916 to study dentistry. He got a first degree at Howard University in 1922, interned in Boston, then worked at the Forsythe Harvard research lab and went on to get an advanced degree at the Royal College of Dental Surgeons in Toronto. He was a radiological instructor, then did postgraduate work in pathology, preventive dentistry and periodontia.
He opened a practice in Harlem and became president of the Harlem Dental Association. In 1925, he published an article on root-canal procedures in the first issue of the journal American Dental Surgeon.
He was appointed dean of the College of Dentistry at Howard University in 1929, but resigned in an internal administrative struggle. He later sued Howard and was vindicated with a monetary award for lost wages.
Donawa returned to Harlem and private practice as a dentist and oral surgeon, and was soon deeply engaged in civil-rights issues. He developed a robust anti-fascist voice in the Daily Worker at that time.
In the summer of 1935, in response to actions by Mussolini in invading Ethiopia and wrote, “We must create unity between the Italian and the Negro people…We must arouse sentiment to help Ethiopia.”
He became one of the leaders of the Medical Committee for the Defense of Ethiopia and in November he reported to the New York Age that two tons of medical supplies had been gathered, sent, and had reached the forces fighting in Ethiopia.
When Mayor LaGuardia participated in a pro-Italy rally, he wrote to him, “As the mayor of the largest city in the US, which has declared itself completely neutral, your action on behalf of Italy cannot be construed as a private affair; and the Medical Committee for Defense of Ethiopia voices not only its own protest but the justified indignation of the Negro masses of Harlem and other sections of New York City.”
In 1936, at the start of the Spanish Civil War, he was again fighting fascism, this time against Franco. But instead of offering support only from a distance, he volunteered and went to the front lines in Spain for over a year. His help was welcomed, and he became the head of oral surgery at the American Base Hospital at Villa Paz. 
Early in his time in Spain, he suffered a minor injury in an aerial assault in the town of Port Bau.
A reporter from the Daily Worker was there.
“The bombers had just been over and Dr Donawa was flung to the ground. When the planes passed on, he rose, and continued talking where he left off, without looking up. Always cool, brilliant at his task, he now directs the work of a large base hospital.”
The reporter called him, “a sculptor in bone and flesh who brought men back to life and health.”
Poet Langston Hughes visited Donawa during his stay in Spain. In his memoir I Wonder as I Wander, Hughes wrote that Donawa “was in charge of rebuilding the faces of soldiers there whose jaws were splintered, teeth shattered or chins blown away. This tall, kindly…man, a favorite with the patients, stayed in Spain until near the end of the war and brought back with him a group of wounded Americans.”
The New York Post reported he brought back 60 wounded volunteers and six nurses.
Donawa was interviewed by the Daily Worker on his return after a year and a half of service, and talked about the importance of such missions: “I think the Negro people have a special interest in preserving democracy because we know full well that what rights we have depend upon the existence of a democratic government. These rights can be extended only by the growth of democracy. If we fight for Spain, or any other country whose democracy is at stake, we are fighting for ourselves.”
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941 – the outrage that drew the previously neutral US into World War II – Donawa was the executive secretary of the newly formed Negro Committee for American-Allied Victory, which proclaimed, “America must remove the shackles from its Negro citizens and tear down Jim Crow barriers now standing in the way of full participation in the war effort.”
Later in life, he continued to be an activist. In 1945, he was elected president of the North Harlem Dental Association and advocated for socialised medicine that would “guarantee medical protection for all Americans.”
The next year, as head of the Manhattan Dental Association, he was a signatory on a telegram to President Truman about anti-labour legislation.
“We, and the Negro people of Harlem for whom we speak, are vigorously opposed to the drastic curbs you have asked Congress to clamp down on the organised workers of our country. To deprive workers of the right to strike is to destroy their final weapon of defense against oppressive employers.
“To force involuntary servitude upon workers is to adopt the fascist pattern of slave labor. The Negro people have learned that a strong and democratic labor movement is our best guarantee of security and progress. We will defend labor's rights as our own.”
It is unclear what consequences Donawa faced over the years for being so outspoken. During the 1950s, McCarthy anti-communist crusade, his name appears on lists of those under investigation, but it is unknown what action, if any, was taken against him.
He later retired from his practice and reportedly returned to Trinidad and died in the 1960s, but details are lacking.
What is clear is that he was an outspoken advocate for civic rights at a time when few were willing to speak out, and fewer still to risk their lives to help the injured, during a war almost a century ago. (Source: Newsday, August 11, 2024)

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