♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
On a cold December morning
in 1919, just after 4:00 a.m.,
Emma Goldman,
her companion Alexander Berkman,
and more than 200 other
foreign-born radicals
were roused from their
Ellis Island dormitory beds.
In the freezing darkness,
the deportees began a journey
into exile.
(waves crashing)
Thrown out of the United States
for her opposition
to the First World War,
and especially for
her political beliefs,
Goldman claimed she was proud
to be selected
for the honor of deportation.
Privately, she was devastated.
GOLDMAN (dramatized):
One does not live in a country
34 years and find it easy to go.
I found my spiritual birth here.
All I know I have gained here.
Through the porthole,
I could see the great city
receding into the distance.
It was my beloved city,
the metropolis of the New World.
NARRATOR:
For nearly 30 years, Goldman
taunted mainstream America
with her outspoken attacks
on government,
big business, and war.
Goldman condemned capitalism,
denounced marriage,
and crusaded for birth control.
The newspapers called her
a "modern Joan of Arc,
"a heretic, a woman possessed
of uncompromising
single-mindedness."
Personally she could be
obnoxious.
She could be ruthless,
she could be vindictive.
MAN:
A plain Russian Jewish girl,
but with some magnetism.
MAN:
I think she was
a serious political theorist
who actually thought,
through an anarchist movement,
you could create this kind
of self-governing world.
(crowd clamoring)
MAN:
Whenever the state
became too powerful,
when it became too intrusive
in people's life,
when it became too cruel,
Emma's voice was there.
Anarchism was often associated
with violence and terrorism,
and that's the image
that people have today.
(gunshot)
I think her whole life
was operatic--
meaning flamboyantly
larger than life.
NARRATOR:
Goldman's story is one
of passionate defiance;
the story of a life dedicated
to free speech, free thought,
free love;
the story of
an exceedingly dangerous woman.
♪ ♪
MAN:
I think she was, um...
a difficult person,
maybe a dangerous woman,
to everybody.
She was totally unacceptable.
(typewriter keys clacking)
♪ ♪
(waves crashing)
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
Emma Goldman crossed three seas
to reach the promised land.
♪ ♪
In 1885, the feisty
16-year-old Russian girl
had just escaped
an arranged marriage
by threatening to drown herself
in the Neva River.
America, she hoped,
would be her salvation.
MAN:
A land of hope,
a land of opportunity,
a land of infinite possibility.
When you come into this country,
all things are possible for you.
All things are possible.
You can forget the past.
You can have a brave new world.
And for a radical
like Emma Goldman,
a revolutionary
like Emma Goldman,
the volatility of this country
seemed like a great opportunity
for creating
a genuinely new world,
for creating whatever was going
to come after capitalism.
And I think
that she entered this world--
as did many sort of politicized
people, political radicals--
coming here feeling
this was the place
where the revolution
could be born.
(footsteps echoing)
GOLDMAN:
I was 20 years old.
My entire possessions consisted
of five dollars
and a sewing machine.
I had no friends,
but I carried the address
of "Die Freiheit,"
an anarchist newspaper.
NARRATOR:
Within a day of her arrival,
Goldman walked into Sach's Café.
♪ ♪
(people chattering)
MAN:
She's walking into a place--
one can imagine it--
tumultuous, full of people,
writers, working men,
printers, people working
in textile shops,
all there after a day's work,
from a political meeting,
talking about politics,
the hubbub, the smell of beer,
the amazing number
of languages being spoken.
She came home
when she came to Sach's.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
Sitting at a nearby table
was Alexander Berkman.
Berkman, called "Sasha"
by his friends,
had been in the country
only a year.
He would become
the still point of her life.
MAN:
He was quite standoffish
at first.
He didn't think women
were reliable revolutionaries.
He thought women attended
radical meetings
in order to look for a man,
and once they found men,
they were gone
and took the men with them.
He's young, he's...
ferocious,
he's charming, he's dedicated,
he... he lives
and breathes anarchism.
♪ ♪
She's aware that something's
happening in her.
She may not even be aware of it;
maybe we're saying too much.
You've suddenly changed
and you're there
and now you are
with other people;
you're not alone.
It must have been
a fantastic time for her.
♪ ♪
