The American Civil War of 1861-5 was the most important event in US history, and one of the most important in world history. The victory of the North liberated four million black slaves and abolished slavery, although the movement it unleashed did not defeat racism.

In Britain, despite hardship caused by the war, the working class rallied to Lincoln and abolition, and Karl Marx wrote for a New York paper about the pro-North mobilisations in London and the textile towns of northern England. These mobilisations helped pave the way for a new growth of the British labour movement and for the emergence of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International).

Mark Osborn and Sacha Ismail will discuss the history of the Civil War, British workers’ mobilisation and the lessons for the internationalist, anti-racist left of today.

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