EMMA GOLDMAN fought for social justice by engaging in direct action protest, civil disobedience, and by giving lectures and speeches intended to educate the public about the nature of their dis-empowerment. Social justice movements thrived at the dawn of the 20th century, in the new American age of industrial capitalism that emerged after the Gilded Age. when corporate exploitation of Earth and person were rampant.

Protest, civil disobedience, and cultural and political dissent were a counter-balance to the powerful forces of economic and political subjugation that facilitated the tremendous wealth of a class that came to be known as robber barons—captains of industry and corrupt politicians. Robber barons used unethical business practices to eliminate competitors and gain monopolies, while also manipulating labor market conditions to keep workers’ compensation low and working conditions dangerous.

Their influence was especially strong during the administration of President William McKinley (president from 1897 to 1901), whose presidency was financed by the robber barons in a transactional relationship in which they financed his campaign and then benefited from his official positions.

The circumstances of Emma Goldman’s historical moment, while not exactly the same, have strong contemporary echoes. . . .

In his second-term inauguration speech, President Donald Trump openly admired McKinley’s approach and lauded the conditions that he provided for his successor, President Teddy Roosevelt, to deepen the work of imperial expansion. Trump’s vision of a great America includes cultural cleansing, such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, the annexation of Greenland, the forceful repossession of the Panama Canal, and completion of ethnic cleansing followed by American colonization of Gaza.

Trump’s speech closed with a nostalgic litany of geographic, technological, and social milestones of American history, listed in support of his argument that we should take inspiration from past “greatness” in defining future “greatness.” The implicit message is that when Trump says he wants to “make America great again,” he is harkening back to the time of disproportionate advantage, violent race, sex, and class oppression, and inhumane treatment that facilitated those advancements, alongside extreme privilege for certain classes and a widening gap between rich and poor.

In celebrating American achievements, Trump overlooks the critical contributions of immigrants, uniquely enduring and adapting to unfair labor practices that documented workers do not have to accept, and the role of dissenters and radical thinkers whose activism was crucial to creating the conditions for “[ending] slavery, [rescuing] millions from tyranny, and [lifting] billions from poverty,” as he said in his inauguration address.

Trump’s version of history would have us believe that human rights and world peace can be achieved through military might and economic bullying, but Emma Goldman would likely interpret the same historical narrative of progress as an “ever-recurring struggle for Freedom against every form of Might” (as she wrote in the first issue of Mother Earth).

As he has shown in his first months in office, Trump would reestablish an America in which the state is not subject to the will of the people, but the people are subjects of a state designed to generate wealth for the unending task of protecting its power, and to benefit a small class of people who dictate the limited distribution of resources, such as education, housing, social welfare, medical access and treatment, and other necessities.

It’s worth remembering that the Progressive Era that followed McKinley’s presidency, during which worker protections, labor rights, and other rules protecting the health and dignity of Americans—which rescued millions from tyranny and billions from poverty—was as much the outcome of Emma Goldman’s generation of activism and agitation as it was a reaction to the political system that produced repressive laws and a president who would sign them. Change grew from the interconnected social and political conditions and the activity and voices of Emma Goldman, Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, and countless nameless others.

Emma Goldman recounts her personal story in her autobiography, Living My Life (Parts I & II: seek Dover editions, if not free copies published online; avoid the abridged Penguin edition), which tracks her journey to Manhattan as an immigrant under the torch of Lady Liberty, her path to realizing her calling to activism, which took her through jobs as a factory worker, a brief marriage, and through Jewish communities in the Lower East Side, where she attended a speech by Johann Most (an anarchist newspaper editor and politician) at which her revolutionary spirit found direction.

Goldman was an early feminist, a champion of the marginalized, and a defender of the rights and dignity of everyone whose freedom to live according to the qualities and desires of their unique human spirit was threatened, abused, or oppressed. She was influential in the labor movement, fought for sexual education and access to contraception at a time when these were illegal, defended what we would now call her LGBTQ+ community, advocated for prison reform and an end to unfair and arbitrary incarceration, and promoted new ideas about education that encouraged freedom of thought and inquiry by cultivating open and curious minds in children.

Most of her adult life in the United States was lived under the intense scrutiny of law enforcement. She was banned from visiting many US cities, and was jailed many times as a political prisoner for censorship violations, speaking against the draft, speaking at the same gathering as other anarchists who later committed acts of violence, advocating for contraception, and for being the person whose lectures inspired the man who shot and killed President McKinley (although she had never called for his assassination).

Even though she should have qualified for citizenship through her marriage to an American man, her rights and qualifications were disregarded when she was deported to Russia in 1919. Ultimately, she was deported as a result of the anti-war and anti-draft positions she took during World War I, as articulated in the pages of her magazine, and despite tremendous pressure from politicians, law enforcement, and even other activists to drop or soften her position. But Goldman was staunchly anti-war, anti-violence, and opposed to a government that imposed its will upon its citizens through the draft—and was not one to compromise on her beliefs.

Goldman’s attitude toward violence was complicated. In her youth, she believed in propaganda of the deed—an idea that grew out of revolutionary student movements in Europe and described a type of direct action that is meant to serve as a catalyst for others to also act. Proponents supported violent political action in the name of human rights, and although she never engaged in violence herself, Goldman did initially embrace this view. However, as she matured, her views evolved, and she prioritized compassion and understood the power of love and healing over division and violence.

When President McKinley was assassinated by a self-proclaimed anarchist, she defended the inhumane and unfair treatment in prison and at the trial of the man who shot him, but also offered to provide nursing care for McKinley (she was trained as a nurse), referring to him as “merely a human being”—for which she was rebuked by the anarchist community. Impressed and inspired by her compassion, her friend Alexander Berkman wrote from Western State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania (where he was serving a long prison sentence for the attempted assassination of a union-busting steel company executive who was responsible for the deaths of many workers), that “the stupendous task of human regeneration will be accomplished only by the purified vision of hearts that grow not cold.”

Goldman is often misunderstood and mischaracterized as a violent revolutionary and a Communist, but while she labored to understand the minds of people who committed acts of political violence, and advocated on behalf of political prisoners—even those who committed acts of violence—, she spent most of her maturity firmly opposed to violence. While she sympathized with, and at one time supported Communist revolution as a step in the process of returning state power to the people, she was critical of examples of revolution that were excessively violent, and she always rejected state Communism, saying it was not a viable long-term form of government. When state violence was being unreasonably justified by Soviet leaders whose idealism she once respected (and some of whom she once considered friends), she spoke out, resisted, and acted against the Soviet state wherever she reasonably could. She resisted all forms of tyranny, and she rejected the authority of any state entity as a moderator of human life.

Goldman was deported to Russia in 1919, but spent only two years there. She spoke out against the horrendous repression, violence, and inhumane conditions that she witnessed during her time in Soviet Russia, from which she escaped to Germany and then France. Her criticisms of the Soviets were ridiculed by her former activist community in America, who could not see past the wall of Soviet propaganda, and were also disavowed by Soviet leaders. Her insistence on the true principles of freedom that underlied her vision of anarchism left her in relative obscurity at the time of her death, and as a historical figure she is often remembered (incorrectly) as a supporter of Communism.

Emma Goldman’s contemporaries included Marcel Proust, Albert Einstein, Monhandes Gandhi, W.E.B. DuBois, Bill Haywood (founder of the Industrial Workers of the World), and Mother Jones, matriarch of the labor movement. Her brilliance, compassion, and insight certainly puts her among them. Emma Goldman’s fidelity to the core principles of freedom of life and thought, the dignity of all people, and respect for the human spirit were at the heart of her fighting spirit. Her unwavering integrity put her at odds with anyone who ignored the humanity of others, even if that meant that she was sometimes at odds with her comrades. But it also cemented her place among a canon of revolutionary thinkers who lived by unshakeable principles and boundless compassion, and calls to mind a statement by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. . . . Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permanent; only love can do that.”

Emma Goldman died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1940, and was buried in Chicago near the Haymarket martyrs, an initial source of inspiration for her political engagement.

In the first issue of Mother Earth (1906), Goldman wrote that “the way history is written will depend altogether on whatever purpose the writers have in view. . . . Our aim is to teach a different conception of historical events. To define them as an ever-recurring struggle for Freedom against every form of Might. A struggle resulting from an innate yearning for self expression, and the recognition of one's own possibilities and their attitude toward other human beings. History to us means a compilation of experiences, out of which the individual, as well as the race, will gain the right understanding [of] how to shape and organize a mode of life best suited to bring out the finest and strongest qualities of the human race.”

This publication, Mother Earth No. 140, comes more than a century after the last issue, No. 139, was published by Emma Goldman. (The magazine was shut down in August 1917 and she was deported a few months later.) It is launched anew in the spirit of her compassionate worldview. We understand from her story and the historical context that unfolded in the years following her life that anarchism is not necessarily an effective political position, nor does it provide a reasonable framework for rethinking state organization. Rather, it is most effective as a moral attitude taken up in contradiction to the tendency toward abuse that is inherent in all power, as a repellent to all forms of hatred and greed, and as a challenge alive in each of us to the dominance of authority in all its forms over the imperatives of human life and dignity.

Above all else, the relaunch of Mother Earth seeks to exemplify the careful balance between social justice, political action, and genuine compassion that Goldman embodied—the wisdom to act that was rooted in her “purified vision of hearts that grow not cold.” We intend to use this platform for deep contemplation, reflection, and self-critique, alongside social and political critique that is rooted not in any particular ideology, but in the values of human dignity and freedom. We offer Mother Earth No. 140 as a vehicle to carry the voices and perspectives of the people who contribute.

We believe in the power of intersectional inclusivity, that the stories of those most impacted and harmed by the dynamics of our society, and the reflections of those who benefit most from intersectional privilege, will illuminate the path toward true healing, repair, and progress.

We are deeply interconnected beings—each of us co-creating everything in our world at every moment. Consequently, we believe that giving a platform to voices that are contrary, harmonic, loving, intelligent, critical, and revolutionary will contribute to a more harmonious, balanced shared reality. Here is a place to share stories, hopes and fears, joy and grief, and connect these with our visions for compassion, justice, and accountability in every sphere of life.

Dr. John Crook, ethnologist and Chan Buddhist master, wrote (in The Evolution of Human Consciousness), “History is littered with states whose structures became too closed.” One does not need to agree with the ideology of anarchism to contribute to Mother Earth, but the contents of this publication should agitate the seats of power, highlight aspects of our historical moment that are overlooked or intentionally obscured, and contribute to “the struggle for Freedom against every form of Might” that will prevent our minds, the structures of our society, and our state from becoming too closed.

We call back to Mother Earth, both the true Mother invoked by Emma Goldman in the original introduction to her journal, and the spirit of creativity, critical thinking, storytelling, honesty, and resistance in the magazine she published.

We hope these pages will be filled with the stories and ideas—essays, poems, drawings, photography, journaling, observations, statements, theories—of regular people who have lived, or seek to live, with hearts full and minds open. May this bring about some measure of wisdom, or knowledge, or even a vague feeling of the possibility of individual flourishing and social harmony—and a deeper peace, even as we acknowledge suffering.

—The Mother Earth Committee