Dear Friends, “Health care is a human right,” Neal Rosenstein, the President of the Puffin Foundation, said at our annual gala on May 2. “And yet in a country as wealthy as the United States, health care isn’t a right, but all too often a condition of privilege.” The urgent need for health care...
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Grandpa Stops A War: A Paul Robeson Story, by Susan Robeson. Illustrated by Rod Brown. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2020.
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I resented the world for having taken my mother away from me, explains journalist James Benét, who went to war to fight against fascism in Spain, and no doubt part of my radicalism was that, he says, proud having chosen the right target, the ills of society. I feel that everyone should feel that...
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Dear Friends, No pasaron. They did not pass. As this issue goes to print, we are emerging from one of the most intense election seasons the United States has ever lived through, following four years that have revealed the best and the worst faces of this country. On the one hand, we saw a...
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Abe & Jack, Milt, Moe, Dave… They were not my family. They distrusted strangers. I could only approach them slowly, these Americans who had volunteered to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War. They lost, bad guys won—they bore failure like primal sin or first love that comes and goes, never leaves....
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How can we leverage our educational system into a building block for an anti-fascist front? This has long been the key question behind ALBA’s work.
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Sanctuary The village creek serpentines to open seas where I stand all day at the ocean shore, feeling the Earth’s core tremble. Sailor Melville got it right, picturing landlubbers lined at water’s edge looking outward on holidays chary of wet feet. I’m of the coastal breed, fear-fed by tsunamis, yellow signs...
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Dear Friends, More than 50 New York City high school students, together with their history teachers, attended our annual event on May 5. It’s been a while since we had so many young faces in the audience. Along with some 150 other attendees, they saw the Immigration Justice Campaign receive the ALBA/Puffin Award for...
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Among the dozens of primary source documents in the resource binder distributed to the teachers who participate in ALBA’s teaching institutes are a letter that President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the U.S. ambassador in Madrid in March 1945, and the transcript of a conversation four years later between Milt Wolff, the last commander...
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Anonymous The old Communist behind the bar is decanting rot-gut red into green bottles, pours me a taste. He’d fought in Spain with the Lincoln Brigade and in the big war that followed. He has stories. Oral history we call it: I want his past, he hopes for my future. He pours, I drink....
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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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Few things can improve the pleasure of longer days and warm weather the way a good book does. Whether soaking up the sun or chilling in the A/C, pick up one, or all five, of these non-fiction works that center on or have a connection to the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ariel May...
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Beatriz Gomez-Acuna visited the grave of Canadian-American Stanley Emil Blaskiewicz (who post-war changed his name to Blake) in Chicago. Joe Roth visited Aubrey Kirby Kelley’s grave in Ryan, Texas and placed a Republican flag. Thank you both for taking the time to honor these American Volunteers. For those who may be interested in participating...
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Blaine from Las Vegas visited Emil Meersand’s grave this week. Thank you Blaine and thanks in advance to all the volunteers who will visit the graves over the next week. For more information about the project see Progress on Honoring Those Who Served in Spain. If you wish to participate you can still volunteer....
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Raymond Hoff and Nancy Phillips’ nationwide project to honor the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade by placing Spanish Republican Flags and flowers on their graves is bearing fruit. The first two visits were recently completed. Theron Snell completed a six-hour round trip to Roswell, New Mexico to visit veteran Joseph Vogel’s grave. Ken...
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Manus O'Riordan, Ireland Secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, writes about "The Radical Paul Robeson" and the Spanish Civil War in The Tribune. Read the article here.
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Since 2014, volunteers have visited the graves of Lincolns and honored them on Memorial Day by putting down a simple white rose and an International Brigades flag. This year, ALBA helped advertise this project through a link to the online version of the Volunteer Newsletter1. The response from that approach has been rewarding and...
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Due to the untiring work of Ray Hoff, ALBA’s volunteer data base now has three new photographs. Hoff who identified and contacted family members of Isadore “Jack” Ehrenberg, and Robert Gavin and his younger brother Eugene Victor Gavin. These families provided the photographs. Family members are encouraged to review the data entries and provide...
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Veteran Joe Brandt’s pamphlet Black Americans in the Spanish People’s War Against Fascism. 1936-1939 was published by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades in 1979. It was the first attempt to document the history of African American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and...
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African Americans in the Spanish Civil War: “This Ain’t Ethiopia, but It’’ll Do” by Danny Duncan Collum was published in 1991. In the thirty years since the book was originally published researchers have identified additional African American volunteers and removed others added to the list in error. The updated names are listed below along...
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Volunteer for Liberty V. 1, No. 3, April 1938 Commander Douglas Earl Seacord by Doug Roach Half a world lies between the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts and the Jarama valley. Provincetown, first landing place of the Pilgrims in their search for liberty is – a summer resort frequented by artists, writers and professional people....
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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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