On this day, 14 July 1967, Black anarchist Martin Sostre was arrested at his Afro-Asian Bookstore in Buffalo, New York and charged with “sale of narcotics, riot, arson, and assault.” The charges were fabricated as part of the COINTELPRO counterinsurgency program, but he was sentenced to up to 41 years in prison. While in prison he became a jailhouse lawyer, helping his fellow prisoners, and educated others, such as Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin, about libertarian socialism. After an international campaign for his release, Sostre left prison in February 1976.
Learn more in this short biography by Ervin: https://libcom.org/library/martin-sostre-prison-revolutionaryhttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2034528280065645/?type=3
On this day, 14 July 1896, legendary Spanish anarchist and civil war fighter Buenaventura Durruti was born. At the age of 14 he left school and began training as a mechanic in a railway yard. In 1917 he took part in a strike which was crushed by the army who killed 70 workers, injured over 500 and imprisoned 2000.
He later joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) union, fought against the dictatorship of Miguel Primo do Rivera and was forced into exile, where he travelled to Latin America, where he undertook bank robberies in Chile and Argentina to fund the workers’ movement.
Durruti later returned to Spain, and with the right-wing military rising of general Francisco Franco, he joined the fighting in Barcelona, during which the coup attempt was crushed and CNT workers took over the city. In an interview Durruti told a journalist that the working class “are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and burn its own world before it finally leaves the stage of history. We are not afraid of ruins. We who ploughed the prairies and built the cities can build again, only better next time. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.”
Durruti headed a column of 3000 revolutionary militia members and travelled to the Saragossa front to fight the nationalists. He and his column later came to Madrid to defend the city which was under attack, during which he was killed. His body was transported back to Barcelona where half a million workers took to the streets to attend his funeral.
Learn more about the Spanish civil war in our podcast episodes 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/2034128273438979/?type=3
