Bear it aloft, O roaring flame!
Skyward aloft, where all may see.
Slaves of the world! our cause is the same;
One is the immemorial shame;
One is the struggle, and in One name—
Manhood — we battle to set men free.
Written In Red, Voltairine de Cleyre
In 1986, distinguished historian Paul Avrich (1931 – 2006) donated to the Library of Congress his extensive collection of books, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, and ephemera relating to his study of anarchism in Russia and the United States. Nestled among the books in his multi-format benefaction was a copy of a biography that he wrote about a member of the American labor movement, Voltairine de Cleyre (1866 – 1912), whose energetic contribution to the complexity of labor history had been all but forgotten.
Published in 1978, Avrich’s An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre