British and Spanish archaeologists have spent two years investigating Spanish battle sites. American journalist Steve Dinnen joined the dig at Belchite. “We are not here to tell nice stories about the past. The past hurts.”
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“We have to reclaim our history, not discard or forget it,” labor organizer David Bacon advised an enthusiastic crowd honoring the legacy of the Lincoln Brigade at the 79th Bay Area reunion event in Berkeley, California on November 8. His talk, together with tributes to Emilio Silva, this year’s winner of the ALBA/Puffin...
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When should one government intervene in the affairs of another country? When, if ever, should private civilians violate laws to participate in foreign wars? And how do we teach high school students to think about these questions? ALBA’s Peter Carroll considered these questions at the annual conference of the Ohio Council of Social Studies.
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ALBA’s fifth annual Human Rights Film Festival featured 21 documentary films from 12 countries (four world premieres, 12 New York premieres). The Randall Award went to Among the Believers, about radical Islam and a charismatic cleric in Pakistan.
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In May, 21 organizers from the US participated in a social movement delegation to Spain. The trip was timed to coincide with Spain’s municipal elections on May 24th. The group learned from new political parties that seek to make electoral politics more accountable and democracy more participatory, from social movements working on housing and...
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Julian Bond died on August 14. A few days later, Democracy Now! aired a tribute to him and I was struck by one of the comments by Benjamin Jealous, who was CEO of the NAACP while Julian Bond was President.
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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 first thing you see as you approach the Civil War Shelters Museum on Gisbert Street in Cartagena are the trees growing out of the mountainside. Their unusual network of thick, exposed roots pushing out of the ground suggests that these ancient trees might have been around since the Bronze Age, witnessing Hannibal as...
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P. D. Murphy, As I Walked Out Through Spain in Search of Laurie Lee (Bristol: Silverwood Books, 2014).

An unpublished poem by Víctor Jiménez Jódar, with translation by ALBA's Antony Geist.
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Progressive organizer Yolanda “Bobby” Hall, a lifelong political activist, social justice advocate and educator who served on ALBA’s Board of Governors, died on June 19 at her home in Oak Park, Illinois. She was 93.
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Lincoln vet and path-breaking composer Conlon Nancarrow was among the dozens of American leftists who no longer felt at home in the United States. After moving to Mexico he began a 40-year career of composing for the player piano. In June, New York's Whitney Museum of American Art celebrated his work with a 10-day...
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For the past 15 years, Velina Brown has been singing at Lincoln Brigade reunions, most recently at ALBA’s New York celebration in May.  “The vibe in the room is often lush with emotion, a sense of connectedness and passion.”
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What a surprise, a few minutes ago, to open the June issue of The Volunteer and to see on page 14 the article about my father, Pierre Daura, with reproductions of two of his paintings.
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Mari Pepa Colomer y Dolors Vives fueron las primeras dos mujeres de la España republicana en conseguir su título de piloto y ambas trabajaron como instructoras para el Ejército de la República durante la Guerra Civil. Vivieron vidas de leyenda, pero una década después de su fallecimiento, la mayoría de los españoles no las conocen. (Version in...
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Mari Pepa Colomer and Dolors Vives were the first two women in the Spanish Republic to earn their pilot’s license, working as flight instructors for the Republican Army. Both led lives of legend and enjoyed an uncommon longevity—yet a decade after their deaths, most Spaniards have never heard of them.
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Impugning Impunity: ALBA’s 5th Human Rights Film Festival October 26-28, 2015 Instituto Cervantes New York 211 E. 49th Street New York, NY 10017   79TH Annual Celebration honoring the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Bay Area 1 pm to 3 pm Sunday, November 8, 2015 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 2020 Addison Street Berkeley, California 94704 For...
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When do we stand up for what we believe in? What are our obligations in the face of injustice? In July ALBA worked with a dozen public school teachers from Detroit.
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Over the course of three days, a selection of the best independent human-rights documentaries chosen from over 150 entries–sent in from all corners of the globe–will challenge, educate, and inspire audiences at Impugning Impunity.  October 26-28, 2015 Instituto Cervantes New York 211 E. 49th Street New York, NY 10017 One standout film from the Official...
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“There is no smooth easy road in the direction of progress,” wrote Evelyn Hutchins, the Brigadista truck driver who made countless trips across dusty furrows during the Spanish Civil War. Inspired by Evelyn and her comrades, ALBA does its part to further ideals of social justice and human rights, past and present. While...
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Thanks to the funds provided by the 2015 ALBA/Puffin Award, Spain’s Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) has been able to continue its much-needed work location and exhuming mass graves from the Spanish Civil War, identifying the remains, and returning them to their families.
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Timothy Johnson takes over this month as Head of Tamiment Library, whose outstanding holdings include the ever-expanding ALBA collection. Johnson will be working with Assistant Curator and Public Services Librarian Kate Donovan. A conversation about plans, challenges, and legacies.
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(English translation.) El tiempo y la justicia son inseparables: es imposible hacer justicia sin tener una conciencia del tiempo. El tiempo no sólo pasa para los muertos; también pasa para los vivos–los vivos que están esperando, al borde de la fosa, para el retorno de los restos de sus seres queridos. Están esperando a...
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What you leave to friends and loved ones–and the causes you champion– are ways of expressing your hopes and dreams for the future. Help 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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José Alejandro Ortiz Carrión with Teresita Torres Rivera, Voluntarios de da Libertad. Puertorriqueños en defensa de la República Española 1936-1939 (San Juan: Ediciones Callejón, 2015).

Richard Rhodes, Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015). 

The last known International Brigade veteran in France, César Covo, died in March in Rennes, France, just a few weeks from his 103rd birthday. His death marks the silent turning of a historic page as he was most certainly the last surviving IB veteran of the battle of Madrid.
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I wasn’t even born, never saw a soldier point a rifle into the face of a woman, her hair beginning to gray, run red. I witness from a distance the dark-eyed girl in Capa’s photo snuggled on a rice sack in a train station. Her pose wistful: to where railroad tracks began and will...
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An exhibit in Hamburg displays images of the Chapaiev Battalion taken by soldiers and Gerda Taro, from the collection of Alfred Kantorowicz and the ICP.
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My formative experiences took place in Italy within a political culture deeply shaped by the values of international solidarity, social justice, and antifascism that motivated the women and men of the International Brigades.
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Pierre Daura, John Rossen, and Herman Bottcher—a Catalan painter, an American factory worker and a German carpenter—forged a close friendship in the trenches of Spain. A Japanese mortar round, a poem, and a painting united their lives, leaving a lasting artistic legacy.
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Time and justice are inseparable: it is impossible to do justice without a proper awareness of time. Time does not only pass for the dead; it also passes for the living—the living who are waiting, at the side of the graves, for the return of their family members’ remains. They are waiting for a...
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Cultural anthropologist Francisco Ferrándiz has spent the last 13 years of his life studying the impact of Civil War exhumations in Spain, working in close collaboration with groups like the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. Thanks to their efforts, Spanish citizens have exhumed more than 6,000 bodies since 2000—most of them civilian...
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