As Election Day approaches, it is increasingly hard think or write about stamps that don’t somehow connect with tomorrow’s watershed vote. Consequently, I’ve been on the lookout for stamps that, in some way, connect with my current emotional mix of anxiety, excitement, bewilderment, resoluteness, and many other things.
Today, that process brings me to 4- and 8-cent stamps honoring Giuseppe Garibaldi that were issued on November 2, 1960 (six days before John F. Kennedy was narrowly elected president). The stamps were part of the Post Office’s “Champions of Liberty” series, intended as dramatic counterpoints to the Soviet Union’s totalitarianism by honoring men who fought for freedom in their homelands.
Like many things portrayed on stamps from this era, I had a vague idea that Garibaldi was an important figure behind the unification of Italy in the 19th century. While that’s more or less true, what’s even more striking is the length and breadth of his efforts, which included not only decades of battles in what is now Italy, but also many years spent fighting for the cause of freedom in South America, where he’s still honored as a revolutionary hero.
Born in 1807 in Nice, Garibaldi became a sailor, a merchant captain, and an officer in the navy of Piedmont-Sardinia, one of the regions that later became part of Italy. He became a supporter of Italian unification under a democratic republican government. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but he escaped by sailing to South America, where he spent 14 years in exile. During that time he fought in support of rebels in Brazil and later in Uruguay, where he raised an Italian force known as Redshirts that fought and won several critical battles.
In 1848, Garibaldi returned to Italy and commanded and fought in military campaigns over several decades that eventually led to Italian unification. With help from his allies, he became the public face of the unification effort and a poweful symbol. As Time magazine noted in a 2007 article about celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of his birth, “in Italy, the iconography of Garibaldi – a dashing figure with piercing eyes and a mane of hair – has been massaged by virtually every generation since…[the battles that] established the modern country we know today. Mussolini cited Garibaldi’s nationalist determination as the precursor of fascism, while leftists have claimed him for his battles over equality and anticlericalism. Still, few deny that Garibaldi’s combination of charisma, courage and integrity was pivotal to the birth of the nation in 1860. Indeed, among his many nicknames, Garibaldi is known as the ‘George Washington of Italy.'”
Garibaldi also became, “an international icon both during and after his lifetime, an archetype of the modern military folk hero who understood the link between his cult and his cause,” according to Time. Among the well-known figures who praised him were such luminaries as Abraham Lincoln, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Charles Dickens, and Friedrich Engels.
He was such a champion of liberty that when the Civil War began, he offered his services to Abraham Lincoln. And his reputation was such that he was offered a commission as a Major General in the Union Army. Garibaldi turned down that offer, proposing instead that he be appointed commander in chief of the Union forces and that he have the power to abolish slavery. The US Minister to Brussels who had met with him, reported that Garibaldi said “he would of little use without the first and without the second…the world at large would have little interest or sympathy” for the Union’s cause.”
His fame and reputation grew over his life and after his death. There are, for example, statues of Garibaldi outside the entrance to the US Senate chambers and in New York City’s Washington Square Park. Daniel Radcliffe, star of the Harry Potter movies, was quoted in Time as saying “Garibaldi is my favorite hero. In my final exam I wrote about Garibaldi and Italian unification….What Garibaldi did was amazing!” And Che Guevera once said “The only hero the world has ever needed is called Giuseppe Garibaldi.”
What are we to make of all of this today, the day before voting ends? Perhaps, we can draw some meaning, strength, or reassurance from Garibaldi’s seemingly unwavering commitment towards freedom and democracy, not only in Italy but in South America and, given the chance, in the US as well. Put another way, the stamp is a timely message about what’s important, what’s worth fighting for, and how long those battles can take.
Stay well, be safe, fight for justice (and freedom), and work for peace.