American anachist feminist, permanently kicked out of the United States for her activism & exercising her free speech rights during the "Red Scare".

"Emma Goldman was a principal exponent of Anarchism, which she herself characterized as "the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary."

Her commitment to Anarchism and her activist inclinations led her to champion the causes of labor, anti-militarism, atheism, prison reform, and women's rights -- not just in the U.S. but abroad as well. After her deportation to Russian in 1919, and subsequent disillusionment with the so-called Soviet revolution, Emma never gave up hope that her anarchist ideals might still find fertile ground. She saw the flower bloom in Spain. Citizens and workers, organized by the CNT-FAI, the Anarcho-Syndicalist union, quickly suppressed the July, 1936 uprising of the army, led by General Franco, in both Barcelona and the countryside. Emma, 67 years old, rushed to lend her support.

Working on propaganda broadcasts she traveled to London as a CNT-FAI representative seeking support and money for the cause. A newsreel, produced by the CNT/FAI and documenting the death of the Spanish Anarchist militia leader, Buenaventura Durruti, and narrated by Emma, was discovered by Pacific Street Films in 1980.

Emma was to end her life in Canada, heartbroken with Franco's final victory, but nonetheless committed to championing the cause of Anarchism and the social revolution. Arriving in Toronto, well-worn suitcase in hand, she was taken in by many friends and comrades. In return, as a representative of the International Antifascist Solidarity, she was active in procuring help for the tens of thousands of Spanish exiles interned in French concentration camps. Emma was also to devote boundless energies to causes closer to home, included a campaign in Canada to prevent the deportation of an Italian Anarchist, Attilio Bortolotti, to Mussolini's Italy, where he would have faced certain death.

It was in Canada that Emma Goldman was to live out the rest of her life. Indeed, her dusty old suitcase, representing her years of travel and activism, came to rest in the home of another Spanish refugee, Federico Arcos. In the basement of his suburban home the suitcase rested amid an enormous archive of Spanish Anarchist materials collected from sources around the world.

For many years, through the terrible years of the Spanish dictatorship, Federico was one of several refugees who helped keep alive the bright light of the Spanish Anarchist experience.