Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940)
Sun Jun 27, 1869
Emma Goldman, born on this day in 1869, was an anarchist writer and activist in the United States whose works, including "My Disillusionment in Russia" and her journal Mother Earth, influenced anarchist movements all over the world.
Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a renowned writer and lecturer. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of "propaganda of the deed".
Frick survived the attempt on his life, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control.
After their release from prison, Goldman and Berkman were again arrested and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power, Goldman changed her opinion in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion, denouncing the Soviet Union for its repression of political dissent. She left the Soviet Union and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, "My Disillusionment in Russia".
Goldman was an extremely well-known anarchist in her lifetime, with a reputation as a powerful orator. Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues, including prisons, atheism, freedom of speech, militarism, capitalism, free love, and homosexuality.
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
- Emma Goldman
- Date: 1869-06-27
- Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.marxists.org.
- Tags: #Labor, #Birthdays, #Anarchism.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org