This year’s recipient of the ALBA/Puffin Human Rights Award is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a worker-based labor and human rights organization founded in Florida in 1993.
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ALBA has moved offices from one historical location to another one. Our new home is steeped in history and ripe with promise.
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This past January, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in the Second Women’s March. Their protest underscored that fighting misogyny, xenophobia, and exploitation requires broad alliances. As this issue of the Volunteer illustrates, the Women’s March follows a tradition of activist protest that...
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We can’t talk about defending the human and labor rights of farm workers without talking about their history of organizing unions—and the efforts by the government to suppress them.
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When it first came out, The Story of Ferdinand was not greeted as the simple story that Munro Leaf claimed to have written. With the Spanish Civil War raging,...
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ALBA's teaching teams are looking ahead to a busy spring: We'll be working with teachers in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and South Carolina.
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When the Bremen, a German luxury ship proudly flying the Swastika, was ready to sail from its berth at Pier 46 in New York, two seamen who later volunteered to fight in Spain managed to fool the crew and rip down the Nazi flag. In the archives, Dan Czitrom came across a deserter’s testimony...
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The Spanish Civil War, sparked the imagination and allegiance of a small group of pro-Republic American women journalists: Martha Gellhorn, Josephine Herbst, and Frances Davis. These women, displaced in war, are representative of a much larger displacement.
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Three pairs of fathers and sons chose war over peace when they volunteered to be among the 2,800 Americans who served with the International Brigades in Spain. They came from varied pasts and with divergent motivations. One father followed his son to Spain while...
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Minchom, Martin. Spain's Martyred Cities: From the Battle of Madrid to Picasso's Guernica: Including the Reconstructed Text of Louis Delaprée's The Martyrdom of Madrid. Sussex Academic Press,...
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Editors’ Note: Due to a technical glitch, only a small part of Mr. Murtha’s letter was printed in the December 2017 issue. We apologize for the oversight and print...
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This article was first published in The Volunteer, v. XI, n. 2, December 1989 and is a continuation of Rosenberg‘s The First Day. cb It was the second day...
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John Tisa, The Volunteer. Volume 4, Number 2, 1982. Dr. Pike and I drove together to Madrid in the early morning of 18 May 1937 – he for medical...
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By John C. Blair, The Volunteer, Volume 6, Number 3, October 1984 (Our comrade John Blair, died in 1982. This account of prison life, forwarded to us by his...
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Vernon Snow was killed in action at Fuentes de Ebro during a Nationalist air raid on October 18, 1937. Snow was serving in the Lincoln-Washington Transmissions section when he...
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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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