Struggle for Justice: A Story of the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, 1915-1920

Struggle for Justice is a unique account of the beginning of the American Committee for Independence of Armenia, as told in the surviving papers of three accomplished Armenian-Americans from Syracuse, New York. From the inception of the Armenian and Syrian Relief program in the United States under President Woodrow Wilson’s administration, these individuals came to serve this remarkable philanthropic effort, bringing humanitarian aid to the victims of the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire.After a lengthy involvement with the Armenian awareness movement in America and abroad, the top-level founders of this organization banded together at the close of World War I to form a new American Committee. In one of the most formidable gatherings of American and world figures ever assembled, they recruited the public support of an even more impressive group of adherents from America’s most accomplished cross-section, and from among the Allied nations who joined this sociopolitical movement in the early weeks of 1919, coinciding with the later first session of the Paris Peace Conference. All confirm the highest level of attainment achieved by the Armenian awareness and independence movement in the United States.The many documents, both written and photographic, included in The Struggle for Justice bring the history of this organization to life. One symbolic photograph, depicting the main ACIA convention in New York, February 8, 1919, vividly documents these international post-war meetings, giving a human face to this untold story. Armenian and European historians will appreciate this one-of-a-kind volume.