Synopses & Reviews
When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, loosely affiliated groups of writers, artists, and other politically aware individuals emerged in New York City to give voice to anti-fascist sentiment by supporting the Spanish Republic.
Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War examines the participation of New Yorkers in the political struggles and armed conflict that many historians consider a critical precursor to World War II. Nearly half of the 2,800 Americans who volunteered to fight in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade against Generalissimo Francisco Franco came from the New York area. Fundraising, propaganda, and deployment for anti-fascists everywhere in America were orchestrated through New York City. At the same time, powerful voices in New York expressed sympathy for the pro-fascist side.
The fighting in Spain brought to the surface the complex ideological and ethnic identities always present in New York politics. Facing Fascism examines the full range of this experience, including that of the New Yorkers who supported Franco. It addresses the role of doctors, nurses, and social workers who left New York hospitals to provide assistance to the defenders of the Spanish Republic, as well as those who remained active on the home front. The book also describes the involvement of students in the war, the key role of writers and the media, and the contributions made by members of New York's art and theater communities.
Facing Fascism also serves as the catalog to an exhibition of the same name appearing at the Museum of the City of New York in the spring of 2007. The book and exhibition both make use of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives' extensive holdings, which range from historical documents to video recordings of oral histories. Numerous other libraries, archives, museums, and private collectors have also been consulted to make this the most complete exhibition of its kind ever mounted. The exhibition will also appear in Spain.
Review
“The editors of this well-illustrated collection of essays bring together a distinguished group of historians, writers, and archivists, including Joshua Brown, E. L. Doctorow, Patrick McNamara, Robert Snyder, and Mike Wallace, to shed light on the city's role in this civil war. Between the collection's glossy covers are intellectually engaging and cleverly written essays exploring New York's contributions to the war effort.”
-Choice,
Review
"Only recently are scholars beginning to pay full attention to the key role women played during the Civil Rights Movement. Going South is an important portrait of an often overlooked group whose work—both behind the scenes and on the front lines—helped transform our nation."-Marian Wright Edelman,President, Children's Defense Fund
Review
"A well-written, serious, and important book. I learned a great deal from this interesting and rich study."-Joyce Antler,author of The Journey Home: How Jewish Women Shaped Modern America
Review
"These oral histories are compelling and fascinating, and reclaim a history previously unavailable to us. An original and important contribution."-Deborah Dash Moore,coeditor of Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia
Review
"More than an account of the Jewish women who went South to help in the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties, Debra Schultz has produced a fascinating investigation into the relationship between these women and their parents, their black colleagues in the movement, the Jewish communities in the Southern states, and their final difficult decision to leave the movement. Going South should be read by everyone interested in this vitally important period of American history."-Helen Suzman,former Member of South African Parliament
Review
"A fascinating text which adds to our understanding of recent Jewish Left and feminist politics and activism."-Australian Jewish News,Aug. 2001
Synopsis
Many people today know that the 1964 murder in Mississippi of two Jewish men--Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman--and their Black colleague, James Chaney, marked one of the most wrenching episodes of the civil rights movement. Yet very few realize that Andrew Goodman had been in Mississippi for one day when he was killed; Rita Schwerner, Mickey's wife, had been organizing in Mississippi for six difficult months.
Organized around a rich blend of oral histories, Going South followsa group of Jewish women--come of age in the shadow of the Holocaust and deeply committed to social justice--who put their bodies and lives on the line to fight racism. Actively rejecting the post-war idyll of suburban, Jewish, middle-class life, these women were deeply influenced by Jewish notions of morality and social justice. Many thus perceived the call of the movement as positively irresistible.
Representing a link between the sensibilities of the early civil rights era and contemporary efforts to move beyond the limits of identity politics, the book provides a resource for all who are interested in anti-racism, the civil rights movement, social justice, Jewish activism and radical women's traditions.
About the Author
Peter N. Carroll is Chair of the Board of Governors of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including
The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War and
The Good Fight Continues: World War II Letters from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (NYU Press, 2006), co-edited with Michael Nash and Melvin Small.
James D. Fernandez is Director of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center and Chair of the Department of Spanish at New York University. He is the author of Apology to Apostrophe: Autobiography and the Rhetoric of Self-Representation in Spain (Duke, 1992).