Bay Area Reunion Honors Activist Heritage
Velina Brown and Stephanie Brown. Photo Richard Bermack.
“We have to reclaim our history, not discard or forget it,” labor organizer David Bacon advised an enthusiastic crowd honoring the legacy of the Lincoln Brigade at the 79th Bay Area reunion event in Berkeley, California on November 8. His talk, together with tributes to Emilio Silva, this year’s winner of the ALBA/Puffin Human Rights Activist Award, a slide show featuring the young U.S. volunteers in Spain, and the traditional songs of the Spanish Civil War highlighted a spirited afternoon, mixing entertainment and exhortation to carry on the work for human rights and social justice. “If there is to be any alternative [to current injustices],” said Bacon, “it will only exist because those who don’t benefit from the current system fight to bring a new one into being.”
