Happy birthday to the Mexican revolutionary leader, Emiliano Zapata! Born today in rural Mexico in 1879, he led the armed farmers uprising that eventually snowballed into the Mexican Revolution of 1911. Zapata commanded the “Liberation Army of the South,” fighting for land rights and for power to be in the hands of the peasants.

Beyond the fight for land, Zapata stressed the vital connection between the struggle of the Mexican peasantry and the fight for social justice and material necessities: “We fight for the land and not for illusions that give us nothing to eat […] With or without elections, the people are chewing the cud of bitterness.”

Emiliano Zapata’s life was tragically cut short when he was gunned down by federal forces in 1919. Today his legacy lives on through Zapatista revolutionary groups that emerged in the mid-1990s fighting for land reform and justice, such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

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