Archive's Letters, Photos, Films and Documents Preserve "The Good Fight" For Inspiration and Education
Photo of Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Ernest Hemingway. Pablo Picasso. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Federico Garcia Lorca. All were deeply touched by the efforts of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade- the nearly 3000 Americans who fought against Franco's forces in Spain in the 1930s. Those volunteers will be celebrated Sunday, May 2 at the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives' (ALBA) 74th Volunteers for Liberty reunion program and reception at New York's Museo del Barrio.
Picasso's "Guernica" (photo above) and Hemingway's 'For Whom The Bell Tolls' are probably the best-known works inspired by the Spanish Civil War, and ALBA has recently been instrumental in two others. The first, a film shot by the legendary photographer Cartier-Bresson (currently the subject of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art) was recently rediscovered in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives collection. And a new staging of Spanish poet Garcia Lorca's play 'El Retablillo de Don Cristóbal' quotes letters from Brigade volunteers preserved by the Archive - and available free to the public on the ALBA website at http://www.alba-valb.org/resources/digital-library
The May 2 program and reception celebrate the Abraham Lincoln Brigade's volunteers and their legacy of activism with the presentation of the first annual ALBA Activist Award to Amy Goodman, author and host of Democracy Now!; an appearance by Matti Mattison, one of the last surviving Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers, now an honorary Spanish citizen;, a talk by ALBA board members James Fernández and Sebastiaan Faber that will take attendees on an adventure through the Archives; and a performance by Bruce Barthol (Country Joe and the Fish) of the stirring songs of the Spanish Civil War.
Event information and tickets are available via
http://www.alba-valb.org/news-events/events/#alba-74th-reunion-of
Hear ALBA Executive Director Jeanne Houck discuss the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the Leonard Lopate Show on New York's WNYC Friday, April 30 at 12:40 PM at http://www.wnyc.org/flashplayer/player.html
Read The Volunteer, founded by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade:
http://www.albavolunteer.org/
