19th Century
Emma Goldman
1869–1940 · Anarchism & free speech
Without free speech, the rest of it does not matter.
In their words
“Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion and the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property.”
Goldman wrote, lectured and organized for forty years on birth control, freedom of speech, the rights of workers and the dignity of the individual, and was deported in 1919 for it. Her essays insist that the enemy is not a program but the habit of obedience, and that liberty is a practice of dissent rather than a clause in a charter.
Why it matters for freedom
She made liberty personal: a person who cannot speak, love or work freely is not free however they vote.
Who they stood against
the state, the prison, and the war that sent her to an exile she never chose