Article content

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest,” the dangerously courageous and brilliant revolutionary anarchist Emma Goldman wrote in her early 1930s memoir, Living My Life, and it was because of her “reckless abandon” on the dance floor, among other things, that she was routinely belittled and upbraided by the more dreary and humourless among her comrades.

Despite the 1960s’ feminist slogans, Goldman never said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Still, that commonplace misquotation perfectly captures Goldman’s sentiments, as well as those of the brightest and best who carried on in her tradition.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Terry Glavin: Abusing young, powerless teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd is today's campus 'wokeness' Back to video

“I was tired of having the cause constantly thrown into my face,” Goldman wrote. “I did not believe that a cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. . . if it meant that, I did not want it. I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.”