Andrew Plotch, ALBA-Puffin Foundation Youth Activist and a high school senior in New Jersey, is the creator and leader of the nationwide Fight Apathy Campaign.
Read more »

The era of DNA has changed the face of criminal justice forever. DNA tests have contributed to the exoneration of hundreds of innocent individuals —and exposed a deeply flawed system. Maddy deLone, executive director of the Innocence Project, makes the case for science-based judicial reform.
Read more »

ALBA hosted another successful teaching institute this spring, the first one in Massachusetts.
Read more »

Stuyvesant High School marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War with presentations based on ALBA’s recent Teaching Institute.
Read more »

Some ninety African-Americans joined the Lincoln Brigade in Spain. They came from urban inner cities in the north and the rural south; they were sharecroppers, labor organizers, mechanics, laborers, merchant seamen, and students. They all shared a commitment to justice and equality. I must keep fightin’/Until I’m dyin’. . . Paul Robeson sang these...
Read more »

Video summary (17'); Stevenson’s acceptance speech (31'), Farrell and Stevenson (podcast  | video, 55').
Read more »

In a stirring and honest conversation with actor and activist Mike Farrell, ALBA/Puffin Award winner Bryan Stevenson addressed the United States’ continuing struggles with racial injustice, moving his New York audience to tears. (Podcast  | video, 55'.)
Read more »

At ALBA’s moving event in New York, actor Mike Farrell, singer Josh White, Jr., and Amnesty International’s Steven Hawkins help honor Pete Seeger and Bryan Stevenson while celebrating the Lincoln volunteers’ commitment to social and racial justice. Video, 17'
Read more »

The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic: A Witness to the Spanish Civil War. By Henry Buckley (London: Tauris, 2013).
Read more »

Lily Margaret Powell was born in March 1913, one of nine children, at Cwm Farm, Llangenny, where her father farmed a small Welsh hill farm. She attended the village school, leaving home aged 16 to train as a nurse, first in Essex, later in London at St Giles’, Camberwell, and St Olave’s, Rotherhithe –...
Read more »

The unsung story of the British ships and seafarers who defied fascist bombs and u-boats – along with British government indifference – to trade with Republican Spain.
Read more »

We’ve been assured by our friends in Madrid that the International Brigade memorial in the capital’s University City is not in danger. As reported in our last issue, the memorial was deemed to be under threat following a Madrid court ruling in favour of a writ brought by a lawyer with far-right connections complaining...
Read more »

A plaque to the British Battalion’s last stand in southern Catalonia in September 1938 was unveiled on 24 September 2013 by family members of those who took part in the fighting. Erected by the IBMT, it stands next to the old church of Corbera d’Ebre, which was ruined during the Battle of the Ebro...
Read more »

Her reputation as a ground-breaking war photographer long overshadowed by that of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro is the focus of a new book* that powerfully asserts the importance of her work in the Spanish Civil War, writes Jim Jump.
Read more »

Mac-Pap: Memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War. By Ronald Liversedge. Edited by David Yorke. (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2013).
Read more »

Shoot the Messenger? Spanish Democracy and the Crimes of Francoism: From the Pact of Silence to the Trial of Baltasar Garzón. By Francisco Espinosa Maestre. Translated by Richard Barker. (East Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2013).
Read more »

I Am Spain: The Spanish Civil War and the Men and Women Who Went to Fight Fascism. By David Boyd Haycock. (Brecon: Old Street Publishing Ltd, 2012).
Read more »

On April 24, 1937 Captain Mirko Markovic traveled to Madrigueras, site of one of the training bases of the International Brigades, to initiate the formation of a second American Battalion. In Madrigueras Markovic found approximately 100 American volunteers. On first impression Markovic was an odd choice to take the command.
Read more »

One of the two last reported living veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Delmer Berg, turned 98 on December 20. We invited you to send your birthday greetings were been completely overwhelmed by the response. You can read a sampling online at www.albavolunteer.org/2013/12/happy-birthday-del/ where you can also see part of a recent video...
Read more »

Goodbye Barcelona. A musical written by Judith Johnson & K.S. Lewkowicz and directed by Karen Rabinowitz. 2011.
Read more »

Tracy Blake teaches Social Studies at Olmsted Falls High School in northeastern Ohio. Born and raised in Oregon, he has been in the classroom for more than 20 years. He has participated in two ALBA teacher institutes and is one of the co-authors of ALBA’s Social Studies lesson plans available on the newly launched...
Read more »

Human Rights Education has been around for some thirty years. How can we give students a deeper understanding of human rights and the skills they need to pursue positive social change? Thoughts from a veteran in the field. Human Rights Education has been around for some thirty years. How can we give students a deeper...
Read more »

Bill Aalto’s brief, intense life (1915-1958) spanned the turbulent mid-20th century. He was an intelligent, street-wise Finnish-American boy from New York who in Spain became a Republican guerrilla fighter and a poet. After Spain, he found himself burned, betrayed, and persecuted. Aalto’s is one of five lives featured in Helen Graham’s new book.
Read more »

It’s because of each of you, our community, that we are able to succeed in our mission to promote social activism and defend human rights as the legacy of the Lincoln Brigade. This work, of course, requires us all to renew our commitments.
Read more »

Racial equality and civil rights live at the core of the Lincoln Brigade. About 90 African Americans volunteered to serve in the ranks—as soldiers, drivers, mechanics, nurses, doctors, journalists, and social workers. The only prominent entertainer who visited the U.S. volunteers in Spain was Paul Robeson.
Read more »

From bone-dry Afghan mountains to fertile Salvadorian highlands, from the hell of Guantánamo prison to Texas deserts, from paradisiacal Pacific islands to battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, ALBA’s annual Human Rights Documentary Film Series, held in New York at Pace University last November, featured seven films depicting stories of struggle against oppression and...
Read more »

ALBA's 78th reunion on Sunday, April 27 honors the memory of Pete Seeger and features Bryan Stevenson, winner of the 2014 ALBA/Puffin Award. Tickets | Video | Press Kit
Read more »

Bryan Stevenson, the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, will accept the fourth ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism award at ALBA’s annual event in New York on April 27.
Read more »

Pete Seeger, the most important progressive musician of his generation, and the most revered, died of natural causes on January 28. He was 94. He was a faithful friend of VALB and ALBA for sixty years. His legendary Songs of the Lincoln Battalion came out in 1944. “As long as I live,” he said...
Read more »

The visitor enters a small passageway leading to the 17 room Pablo Casals Museum in Vendrell, Spain, at once immersed in cello music and a voiceover narration from the diary of a young Casals. The music surrounds a display of some of the first instruments belonging to the artist.  This multisensory approach to the...
Read more »

Dear Friends, This has been an ambitious year for ALBA as we continue to grow our human rights initiatives and strengthen our educational programming. We recently wrapped up our Third Annual Human Rights Documentary Film Series, Impugning Impunity, at Pace University. It was a terrific showing that included powerful films on a range of...
Read more »

Dear Editor, Fine piece about Bart van der Schelling in the September issue. I recall going along with Alvah and Bart on two occasions, somewhere between 1949 and 1951, where Alvah spoke about Spain, and Bart sang. The place where one was held was at the old mission in Santa Barbara, California. I vividly recall...
Read more »

Paso a la juventud. Movilización democrática, estalinismo y revolución en la República Española. By Sandra Souto Kustrín. (Valencia: PUV, Universitat de Valencia, 2013.)
Read more »

The Faith and the Fury: Popular Anticlerical Violence and Iconoclasm in Spain, 1931-1936. By Maria Thomas. (Brighton: Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies/Sussex Academic Press, 2013.)
Read more »

Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, a preeminent scholar of Spanish literature, a refugee of the Spanish Civil War, and a great friend of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and ALBA, died on September 11. A prolific, rigorous and charismatic scholar, he helped reshape the field of Hispanic Studies in the United States and Spain.
Read more »