But the pedestal we were looking at, my friend assured me, once held a statue of Emma Goldman. Ok, so what had this American anarchist done to deserve being thrown off her perch with the rest of them?
Well, yes, she was Russian-born and after getting arrested in the U.S. several times for her rabble rousing — she had at one point been labeled “the most dangerous woman in America” — had been deported back to Russia where she eventually became thoroughly disillusioned with communism as it was actually practiced.
She died in Toronto, but is buried back in the U.S. — in Illinois — in a cemetery plot thoughtfully reserved for old lefties and anarchists. A complex character, Goldman was sympathetically portrayed in the musical “Ragtime” and today has been rediscovered and revered as an early feminist.
