The Emma Center of Nashville and Emma Goldman

Kay Brooks has turned over the rock that is the Nashville Peace & Justice Center and found all sorts of interesting things.

One of the member organizations that caught my eye was “The Emma Center” which describes itself as  “dedicated to the memory of Emma Goldman, 20th century feminist.”

Let us not mince words. Emma Goldman was not just a feminist, she was an anarchist. And she was not just a feminist-anarchist, she was a terrorist.

Yes, she was the founder of Mother Earth magazine but her life was not dedicated to the search for a better recipe for granola.

In 1892, she and her lover, Alexander Berkman, plotted to assassinate Henry Clay Frick, whose company at one point controlled 80% of the coal mines in Pennsylvania. Berkman attacked Frick in his office and but for poor marksmanship, would have murdered him. He wound up sentenced to 22 years for attempted murder. She was not charged, only because they had been careful to leave no evidence linking her to the crime and Berkman was the only one who could have testified to her involvement. But her complicity is undisputed.

In 1901, when President McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, authorities quickly discovered that the assasin had ties to Emma Goldman. He had approached her for advice and books. She was arrested, but later released. She then publicly defended McKinley assasin (Czolgosz) in a published article in which she compared Czolgosz to Marcus Junius Brutus, the killer of Julius Caesar, and called McKinley the “president of the money kings and trust magnates.

Charming lady.

A young Justice Department employee, 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover wrote in 1919 that “Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and [a] return to the community will result in undue harm.” The government then invoked the 1918 Anarchist Exclusion Act and deported both Goldman and Berkman to Russia, along with over two hundred others.

Nashville Center for Peace and Justice indeed!

By tieing themselves to Emma Goldman, they are throwing in their lot with the founders of political terrorism and assasination.

– Rob Shearer

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