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The Front Lines of Social Change:
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Richard Bermack
128 pages (10 x 8), with 140 black & white photographs
Trade Paper, ISBN: 1-59714-000-7, $19.95
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), close to three thousand young, idealistic Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and joined thirty-&Mac222;ve thousand people from around the world in the &Mac222;ght against Franco’s fascists, who were supported by Hitler and Mussolini. When these young people returned home, they were labeled communists and blacklisted.
"Activism is the elixir of life," says Milt Wolff, now eighty-eight, the last commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. "The only thing that gives any purpose to life is to move humankind along to a better world. The struggle to eliminate homelessness, hunger, disease, and, most of all, war—that is the good &Mac222;ght."
Surviving members of this group have since formed the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and, over the last sixty years, most have participated in virtually every progressive social movement in America. Richard Bermack has assembled an inspiring record. In this book, lifetime activists, many in their eighties and nineties, tell their stories in their own words. In spite of their hardships, each speaks of enduring hope and courage.
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About the Author/Photographer:
Richard Bermack is a documentary photographer, labor journalist, and writer who began photographing members of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade twenty years ago at events and rallies. Bermack’s awards include the Media Alliance’s Meritorious Award for Photography and the International Labor Communicators Association/AFL-CIO’s prestigious Max Steinbock Award for labor journalism. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Parts of this work evolved from the Radical Elders Project. Photos from that project became part of an international exhibition on American working-class art.
Author's Website |
