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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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. This is something that the Socialist party had been campaigning for since 2008, and we were happy to witness the historic moment when the proposal...
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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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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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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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What you leave to friends and loved one--and the causes you champion--are ways of expressing your hopes and dreams for the future and perpetuate your part in the story of the Lincoln Brigade. As you make your plans, please consider including ALBA in your will or living trust, or naming us as a...
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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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Teesside, an industrial region in Northeast England that in the nineteenth century grew to be a center of shipbuilding and iron and steel production, spawned no fewer than thirty International Brigade volunteers. Of the nine who were born in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, moreover, six played leading roles in Spain: five rose to the rank of Lieutenant...
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The first thirty-six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Phase IV were submitted December 30, 2024. Phase IV is intended to focus on volunteers on whom we have minimal information. At some point in the future, I plan to resubmit some volunteers who were returned as not found or on whom no information...
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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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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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