On May 7th over 200 family, friends and supporters of the women and men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade met at Japan Society in Manhattan for an afternoon of poetry, socializing, and song. Together we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the defense of Madrid, and the arrival...
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Our colleague Tony Geist—the longest serving ALBA Board member, professor of Spanish at the University of Washington, author and translator—has been awarded one of Spain’s highest civil honors, membership into the Order of Isabella the Catholic with the first-class title of Caballeros de la Gran Cruz de Oficial, or Knights of the Officer’s Cross....
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Del Berg, the last known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died peacefully in his California home on Sunday, February 28. He was 100 years old. Berg was born in 1915 outside of Los Angeles to a family of poor farm workers. His mother’s line had long since emigrated from Bavaria while his...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA, www.alba-valb.org) mourns the loss of Michael Ratner, a longtime defender of civil liberties in the United States and abroad.
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The torch has been passed. Eighty years after the Spanish Civil War inspired volunteers from 52 countries to challenge the spread of international fascism, no American veterans of that struggle are alive to bear witness, but their spirit and commitment to social justice, human rights, and anti-fascism lives on in the work of current...
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Efforts are ongoing to address the deterioration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade monument in San Francisco. After initial problems of deliberate vandalism were dealt with, the elements began to take their toll on the structure. However, we have been involved in extensive conversations with different offices of the city of San Francisco for well...
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ALBA’s Teaching Institutes continue to break new ground across the United States, reaching more teachers in new communities, expanding opportunities, and seeing exciting results.
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On May 7, the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Right Activism—a cash tribute of $100,000—honored two courageous journalists, Lydia Cacho and Jeremy Scahill, for their dedication to exposing corruption, violence, and the abuse of power which are routinely ignored by mainstream media. They do this work under life-threatening conditions of danger and risk. The day’s...
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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 the Recovery of Historical Memory took charge of the exhumation, helped...
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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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