ALBA is thrilled to announce two new additions to its Board of Governors: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Flint, Michigan, and Prof. Cristina Pérez Jiménez of New York City. Meanwhile, the ALBA office welcomes Cole Stallone as Communications Associate.
Read more »

On June 8, as a kick-off to Pride Month, ALBA will offer an online screening of Bones of Contention. Coming up on June 23: a workshop on Poetry and the Spanish Civil War, with Anthony Geist.
Read more »

At a moving, content-filled annual gala on April 30 (video), Life After Hate received this year’s ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism (press release).
Read more »

To the Editors: I am writing to congratulate ALBA for the terrific workshop on Hemingway and the Lincoln Brigade, in the Perry Rosenstein Cultural Series. The many names of Lincolns rang many bells for me and reminded me of the time I worked with Marion Wachtel to write our book on Robert Merriman, American Commander in...
Read more »

To the Editors: While there have been many recent tributes to my late partner Manus O’Riordan in the Irish media, including President D. Michael Higgins’ own website, and from the many organizations in which he was involved, such as the IBMT and his union, SIPTU, The Volunteer’s article on Manus held very special significance...
Read more »

Exhuming Franco: Spain’s Second Transition, by Sebastiaan Faber. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2021.
Read more »

Spanish author Almudena Grandes, who died in November, aged 61, was famed for her novels portraying ordinary Spaniards’ experience of civil war and dictatorship. Against attempts to veil the past in silence, she insisted that unearthing historical memory was fundamental to building a democratic Spain.
Read more »

The regional government of Catalonia has instituted a new program as part of its ongoing efforts to locate and exhume mass graves from the Spanish Civil War and use DNA technology to identify the remains. The new program, which will be named after Lincoln Brigade veteran Alvah Bessie, will focus specifically on exhuming and...
Read more »

Director Guillermo del Toro’s new film Nightmare Alley is bringing renewed attention to the author of the classic novel by the same name: William L. Gresham, who served in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Yet Gresham’s service in Spain is typically mentioned only because his first and most successful novel was...
Read more »

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Spanish Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) worked to collect the oral histories of brigadistas and to inventory the IB’s archival legacy, which was not only geographically dispersed but often under threat. The Spanish archivist Julia Cela spent eight unforgettable years of her life...
Read more »

Mayday, the earth warms, greens, a trumpet on the car radio bleeds, Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain, the drama of rebirth, a staccato horn chases the bull in an arena, cycles of disorder.
Read more »

Salaria Kea, the only African American woman to serve in Spain, sailed from New York City with the second American Medical Unit on March 27, 1937, and returned to the United States in May 1938. To understand what her experience was like, we must rely on documents scattered through various archives. But archives are...
Read more »

Like most veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, the experience of fighting in Spain shaped the rest of the lives of Stanley Junas and his family.
Read more »

In December 2021 and January 2022, the South Florida Chamber Ensemble (SFCE) performed Extranjeros, a program about the Spanish Civil War and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Written by Myrna Meeroff and produced in partnership with ALBA, the program featured music and texts from Manuel de Falla, María Rodrigo, Joaquín Rodrigo, Federico García Lorca, Joaquín...
Read more »

The ever-expanding ALBA collection, which has been housed at NYU’s Tamiment-Wagner Library since its transfer from Brandeis University in 2000, is now increasingly available online. The slow but steady efforts to digitize materials—archival-quality preservation and transfer is a time-intensive, painstaking process—have focused primarily on graphic and audiovisual objects: not only photographs, posters, and postcards...
Read more »

A growing number of dedicated living historians are choosing to portray the Spanish Civil War at public history events. Although they are as diverse as the Brigadistas they portray, they are united in their passion for history and desire to inspire people to learn more about the conflict.
Read more »

Dear Friends, When Bryan Stevenson received the ALBA/Puffin Award in 2014, he spoke about the message he likes to deliver to white audiences: “I often say: ‘Many of you were raised in households where your parents and your teachers—the people you loved and trusted—taught you that you’re better than everybody else because you are...
Read more »

In partnership with the Collaborative for Educational Services, ALBA will offer a new iteration of its successful five-week online workshop for K-12 teachers anywhere in the world. The course will meet weekly on Thursday evenings between March 10 and April 7. Registration deadline: February 24. For more details, go to www.collaborative.org/events-and-courses/america-and-world-fascism
Read more »

This spring, stay tuned for a special online presentation featuring a performance and discussion of the fascinating letters that Lincoln volunteer George Watt exchanged with his wife Ruth when George was serving in Spain. The letters, curated by Dan and Molly Watt, will be read by professional actors with musical accompaniment. Saturday, April 9...
Read more »

A new slate of “workshops for everyone” offered as part of the new Perry Rosenstein Cultural Series (PRCS) has drawn broad interest from the ALBA community. Modeled on ALBA’s institutes for teachers but open to the general public, the 1.5-hour PRCS workshops are led by two experts who provide participants with reading and viewing...
Read more »

ALBA’s annual gala, including the ALBA/Puffin Award ceremony, will once again be online this year, in light of the ongoing pandemic. Tune in through YouTube or Facebook on April 30 at 4 PM (EDT) for an inspiring slate of speakers and musical guests. For more details, keep an eye on our website and your...
Read more »

On January 6, the one-year anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, ALBA announced that the 2022 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism will go to the organization Life After Hate (LAH) (Press Release). Founded in 2011, LAH helps people leave violent far-right and white supremacist groups to connect with humanity...
Read more »

Willy de Lathouder was the first Dutchman to join the defense of the Spanish Republic. He died in 1938 shortly after the birth of his child. More than 80 years later, his granddaughter discovers her family’s history.
Read more »

We do not know at this point what access will look like in the fall, and are awaiting further information from the University administration, who have set policies on access throughout the pandemic based on safety concerns for the community. In the meantime, we can offer some remote reference and research opportunities, as well as reproduction...
Read more »

It’s always sad when someone dies prematurely, but there is some consolation that Manus’s final hours were spent doing what he loved and dedicated to what he did much of his life.
Read more »

The actor Ed Asner, who passed away in August, was a tireless activist and a faithful friend of the Veterans of the Lincoln Brigade.
Read more »

A People Betrayed: A History of Corruption, Political Incompetence, and Social Division in Modern Spain, by Paul Preston. London: Liveright Press, 2020.
Read more »

On September 23, the Camp de Rivesaltes Memorial in southern France celebrated the opening night of “The colors of exile,” an exhibit honoring the life and work of Josep Bartolí, the Catalan artist and anti-fascist activist.
Read more »

Is it possible to be a pacifist and support—or even join—a war? If our criterion is consistency, the answer is clearly no. Yet consistency, for good or for bad, is not a universal human trait.
Read more »

Pedro Pastor, the young Spanish singer/songrwriter who has performed at several ALBA events, has dropped a new album. An interview.
Read more »

How might instructors teach the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) to students who have little prior knowledge of the period? A participant in ALBA’s teaching workshops explains.
Read more »

Spanish teachers in the ALBA workshops often ask whether they can use the rich and complex material about twentieth-century Spanish history in language classes, even at beginning or intermediate levels. The short answer is: Absolutely!
Read more »

Peter Glazer is a world-renowned director and playwright and a professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He sits on the ALBA board and is an active leader in ALBA’s Bay Area programs. Peter’s father was the folk singer Tom Glazer. You have written several plays and musicals...
Read more »

CRT is a curious target for legislators and school board members, if only because it is not taught at the K-12 level and only rarely to undergraduates. Today, it’s serving as a red herring to silence the discussion of race and racism across classrooms in the U.S. In recent months, Republican legislatures in approximately...
Read more »

ALBA Honorary Board Member Robin D.G. Kelley spoke in September at ALBA’s Bay Area celebration. Here is the complete text of his address.
Read more »