Many of the soldiers who fought in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War were Jewish — perhaps more than one in five of the full 35,000 who came from abroad to fight for the republic. One Yiddish-language company was formed inside a Polish battalion. Called the Botwin Company, it was made up mostly [...]
I was reading through some old documents in preparation for my upcoming survey class on Native American languages, and I came across the following rather amazing letter, written in 1902: (TO:) The Superintendent, Greenville School, California Sir; This office desires to call your attention to a few customs among the Indians which it [...]
June 20.—To-day is my birth day—I am thirty-three years old. At that age Alexander had conquered the world; at that age Wolfe had completed his reputation, and expired in the arms of victory. Well, it is not my fault, if I am not as great a man as Alexander or Wolfe. I have as good [...]
So said James Connolly before the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army seized the GPO and other points around Dublin ninety-four years ago today. “Is there no chance of success?” asked William O’Brien. “None whatsoever,” replied Connolly. He was exactly right. The Volunteers lay down arms after a week of fighting. Connolly himself was the [...]
The view on the left is that today’s new law will be the foundation for a Jim Crow regime for Mexicanos and brown people in general in Arizona. I hope we’re wrong.
Getting that on the record is as good a reason as any to unretire this blog for a moment. Via Womanist Musings, check out this quote from James Cameron in a recent piece in the Guardian on his activism in support of a Brazilian indigenous struggle: “I felt like I was 130 years back in [...]
A historical vignette that I’d never heard of; from the Wikipedia page on the Great Famine in Ireland: In 1847, midway through the Great Irish Famine (1845?1849), a group of American Indian Choctaws collected $710 … and sent it to help starving Irish men, women and children. “It had been just 16 years since the [...]
Palestinian resistance fighters, Lebanon, late 1960s (via)
Students in M?rida (Yucat?n, Mexico) celebrate the Day of the Revolution.
From the website of the astonishing “To the Left for Independence,” a “Communist and pro-Sardinian Independence Political Organization.” Thanks to Paul for the link, if that doesn’t go without saying.
