The 2016 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism will be shared by journalists Lydia Cacho and Jeremy Scahill, who have dedicated their careers to exposing corruption, violence and abuse of power. Award ceremony: NYC, Saturday, May 7 (tickets)
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Delmer Berg, last known surviving member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, passed away at his California home. There has been an outpouring of coverage from news outlets around the world.
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This January 19th, exhumation procedures began to recover the remains of Timoteo Mendieta, murdered by the Franco regime in 1939. In 2013, his daughter Ascensión testified before María Servini, the Argentine judge who has investigated Franco’s crimes against humanity since 2010. On Servini’s orders, the Association for...
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“Even a superficial reading of an article written by a Communist or a conversation with one will probably reveal the use of some of the following expressions,” warned a...
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Editor’s Note: Coming across Pete Seeger’s correspondence with Victor Grossman in Seeger’s FBI File, we asked Grossman if he had any recollections of Pete’s visit to East Berlin. During...
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Richard Bermack is a documentary photographer and writer who has worked primarily for labor unions, including SEIU, the UAW, and the ILWU. In addition to his work on radical...
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In this excerpt from his new book Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Adam Hochschild tells the story of Swarthmore student Joe Selligman (1916-1937), the first American volunteer to join the battle for Madrid. After he left, his parents in Kentucky received an envelope mailed by a friend: “By...
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Why did the American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War name themselves after Abraham Lincoln? Who first came up with the idea of the “Lincoln Battalion” and when? New information is complicating the long-accepted account.
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Robert Hale Merriman, Chief of Staff of the XV International Brigade, disappeared behind enemy lines. His body was never recovered. What happened? Two memoirs and an interview give conflicting versions.
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The New Year has barely started and ALBA is already at work on an exciting number of programs and activities.
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“Without ethical consciousness the audience is only sensual, one of aesthetes… without ethical consciousness, the painter is only a decorator,” declared Robert Motherwell, the creator of the monumental series...
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Mark Derby, Petals and Bullets: Dorothy Morris: New Zealand Nurse in the Spanish Civil War (Brighton/Toronto/Chicago: Sussex Academic Press, 2015).
Shedding Light on a Volunteer for Liberty Alphaeus Danfourth Prowell: Letters from an American Volunteer in the Spanish Civil War Compiled and Self-Published by Dawn Rolland. Sold through Amazon,...
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Live Souls: Citizens and Volunteers of Civil War Spain, by Serge Alternês & Alec Wainman. Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2015. 335 pp.
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Maria Thomas, The Faith and the Fury: Popular Anticlerical Violence and Iconoclasm in Spain, 1931-1936. Brighton, Portland, and Toronto: Sussex Academic Press, in collaboration with the Cañada Blanche...
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In the Jarama Series, The Volunteer Blog will present a series of articles examining the experiences of volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion from its formation to the Brunete...
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In the spring of 1937 some twenty students from Brooklyn College volunteered to fight in Spain. This unique exhibit, curated by Prof. Alejandro Alonso, in partnership with ALBA, will cover three aspects: political...
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We are thrilled to bring you the good news that the town hall in Vicálvaro (southern Madrid) last November approved the dedication of a square to the International Brigades....
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I am the youngest veteran of the Spanish Civil War, born in Barcelona on July 18th, 1930. "Veteran"? Yes. Not a combatant, but a child that together with his...
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ALBA Chair Emeritus and prolific author Peter Carroll reckons with the passing of the Lincolns and their enduring legacy in his touching poem “And Counting” which he shared on...
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About twenty New York city teachers took part in a four-session ALBA workshop this winter, a special initiative sponsored by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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My grandfather (Nana), Suresh, moved to the United States in 1959 as a young man on a student visa pursuing his master’s degree. His parents, my great grandparents, sought value in being ‘foreign educated’ and bringing his education home – to Mumbai, India to run their family business. 2 years after my Nana moved...
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Peter N. Carroll, a respected and prolific writer, poet, and US historian, died after a short illness on September 16, surrounded by his family. He was 80. Born in New York City in 1943 to a secular Jewish family, Peter grew up in the Bronx and Queens, where his father worked as a composer,...
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LA RÉPUBLIQUE -QUOTIDINEN DE COMBAT RADICAL ET SOCIALISTE, February 5, 1938 Foreign Volunteer Arrested On March 27 last, 29 North Americans were arrested on board the boat Sans-Pareil while they were attempting to reach the Spanish Coast. They were sentenced to a prison term for violating the decree of February 18, 1937 on the...
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The “Spanija” series translates selected autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatian or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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The Spanija series translates select autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google Translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatioan or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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Peter Verburgh’s translation from the French Newpaper Le Journal about a group of 29 Americans arrested in France. “29 American Volunteers Arrested in Muret” Le Journal, 5 April 1937 Toulouse, 4 April- The Control services of the Non-Intervention Committee do not remain inactive, especially with the help of the French Police and Gendarmerie. Thus...
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ALBA Board Member Steve Birnbaum made the trek on Memorial Day to the Home of Eternity Cemetary in Oakland, California to pay tribute to ALB veteran Hans Joachim. Joachim was born in Berlin, Germany in 1906 and moved to the US in 1924. He served in Spain with the George Washington Battalion and later...
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Please find attached photos of my visits to the graves of Lester Rowlson and Tersil Obriot last weekend. I left a brigade flag and a fresh white rose at each. ,,, I was also proud to include aspects of my Clapton CFC scarf; you might have heard of this small football club in London that...
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Peter Verbergh translated this article from CeSoir describing the arrest of the Dallet-Nelson Group. “The Interrogation of the Passengers of the Sans-Pareil”, CeSoir, March 29, 1937 (From our Special Correspondent) Perpignan March 28 (By Telephone) Yesterday morning around 10am, The Coast Guard Vessel Cebère docked in the port of Port-Vendres alongside the torpedo boat...
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Only five veterans of the Spanish Civil War are known to be buried in Virginia outside of Arlington National Cemetery: two in Richmond, two in Norfolk, and one in Big Stone Gap. ALB Tribute visited the graves of Harry Edward Farris and Thomas Moore in Richmond as well as Manuel Lizarrago and Crawford Morgan...
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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