On September 26, ALBA’s San Francisco Bay Area community organized a stirring, 75-minute program that was streamed live to an audience of hundreds. Hosted by Richard Bermack, the celebration featured footage of a gathering held in late August at the Lincoln Brigade Monument near the Embarcadero, with June Gipson and Deja Abdul-Haqq of the...
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A new initiative, ALBA Workshops for Everyone, opens our teaching up to the general public. A new teacher workshop is scheduled for early 2022.
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This year, the jury of the Watt Essay contest recognized a group of excellent papers written by high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from around the world.
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ALBA Authors Curricular Guide for Students in Spain ALBA is proud to partner with the Spanish government in the preparation of a curricular guide for high-school students in Spain....
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As part of the Bay Area event this fall, Bruce Barthol conversed with Barbara Dane. Here are excerpts from their conversation, which is also included in the video recording...
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Given the source of our inspiration, it’s perhaps no surprise that we’ve become used to war-based metaphors when speaking about our work.
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ALBA Honorary Board Member Robin D.G. Kelley spoke in September at ALBA’s Bay Area celebration. Here is the complete text of his address.
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CRT is a curious target for legislators and school board members, if only because it is not taught at the K-12 level and only rarely to undergraduates. Today, it’s serving as a red herring to silence the discussion of race and racism across classrooms...
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Peter Glazer is a world-renowned director and playwright and a professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He sits on the ALBA board and is an active leader in ALBA’s Bay Area programs. Peter’s father was the folk...
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Spanish teachers in the ALBA workshops often ask whether they can use the rich and complex material about twentieth-century Spanish history in language classes, even at beginning or intermediate...
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How might instructors teach the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) to students who have little prior knowledge of the period? A participant in ALBA’s teaching workshops...
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Pedro Pastor, the young Spanish singer/songrwriter who has performed at several ALBA events, has dropped a new album. An interview.
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Is it possible to be a pacifist and support—or even join—a war? If our criterion is consistency, the answer is clearly no. Yet consistency, for good or for bad,...
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On September 23, the Camp de Rivesaltes Memorial in southern France celebrated the opening night of “The colors of exile,” an exhibit honoring the life and work of Josep...
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A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence, and Social Division in Modern Spain, by Paul Preston. London: Liveright Press, 2020.
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The actor Ed Asner, who passed away in August, was a tireless activist and a faithful friend of the Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade.
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It’s always sad when someone dies prematurely, but there is some consolation that Manus’s final hours were spent doing what he loved and dedicated to what he did much...
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We do not know at this point what access will look like in the fall, and are awaiting further information from the University administration, who have set policies on access...
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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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Nobody remembers Lloyd Mallan. I came across his name while writing a book on poet- playwright Federico García Lorca’s iconic afterlife. Mallan’s piece on the poet’s assassination, published in 1939, was instrumental in spreading to the U.S. and Canada a highly embellished narrative of poetic martyrdom that helped shape the public image of Lorca....
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For an English translation of this article, see here.
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On May 30, 1937, the Republican freighter Ciudad de Barcelona was hit by a torpedo fired by a lurking Nationalist submarine. The torpedo tore a gaping hole in the ship and it rapidly sank. A Republican seaplane drove the submarine away with a depth charge attack, then landed and began rescuing men in the...
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Dr. Irving Busch (1896-1960), a graduate of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, volunteered to serve in Spain with the American Medical Bureau. In Spain, he served with the Republican Medical Services. Both before and after Spain Busch was an amateur photographer and he carried his camera along with him. After his death...
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The picture of a young man in a jaunty hat and a big smile stared out of the 1978 issue of The Volunteer. The photo was accompanied by a request for information about Sidney Lorraine who died in Spain during the course of The Retreats. There is no evidence of any replies. Sidney Hotchkiss...
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Many American veterans went on to serve in WWII and Korea. This list is a work in progress. Those marked with an “*” were killed during the war. Office of Strategic Services Aalto, William Oliver WWII US Army, joined December 1941 served as 1st SGT transfer to OSS April 12, 1942; Dismissed after he...
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Eddie O’Neill was born in the same County Tyrone neighborhood as the poet Charlie Donnelly (1914-1937), who was killed in action at Jarama while serving as a platoon leader with the James Connolly Section of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Inspired by the sacrifice of his fellow countryman and fellow Irish Socialist Republican, Eddie set...
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“A prominent competitive player in the United States gave a series of lectures and played over famous games from the past. To hear him talking—in our squalid surroundings—with such knowledge about a game once played by Napoleon on the island of St. Helena, was an uplifting and inspiring experience.” In his memoir To...
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With the submission of the August batch freedom of information act (FOIA) requests ALBA will have filed for over 1,000 passport records of American volunteers. Due to the ongoing pandemic responses to the submissions have been minimal. However, we did receive three responses this week. This is only the second batch received in the...
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A short video of the graves visited in 2021. Memorial Day is the day traditionally set aside to remember Americans who served in the military. And, yet, Americans who went to Spain to fight fascism are rarely, if ever, included in the remembrances on this day. The Lincoln Battalion Memorial...
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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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