Antifa expert Mark Bray flees to Spain after receiving death threats

Antifa expert Mark Bray flees to Spain after receiving death threats

By Lynda Carson - October 10, 2025

Historian, Mark Bray of Rutgers University, an expert on antifa fled to Spain after a second try with his family Thursday night after receiving death threats because of his 2017 published book called “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.”

Reportedly according to an article with Wired, in part it says, “After they had already scanned their passports, received boarding passes, checked in their bags, and cleared security, Bray says he and his family were not allowed to board their flight. Upon arrival at their boarding gate, their reservations had suddenly disappeared from the United Airlines system.

"For 20 minutes [United Airlines] couldn't even figure out what had happened,” says Bray. “Then they said that, basically, somehow someone had canceled our reservation, presumably in between checking through and then. I don't know what happened. There are various potential explanations, but I don't think it was a coincidence that it happened to us on that day.”

That’s right! Someone managed to suddenly make their reservations disappear from the United Airlines system. This happened shortly after the convicted felon President Trump had a bizarre roundtable discussion about antifa.

Additionally, according to a recent report on Democracy Now, it says, “Rutgers University history professor Mark Bray says his family is moving from New Jersey to Spain after receiving death threats, including at their home address. Bray was teaching courses on anti-fascism and terrorism at Rutgers and is the author of the 2017 book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.” His planned flight from the U.S. comes after the Rutgers chapter of the campus conservative group Turning Point USA circulated a petition labeling him “Dr. Antifa” and calling for him to be fired. In an interview with Newsweek, Bray said, “This is reflective of the broader trend in the country. The Trump administration, I believe, is moving the country in a markedly authoritarian direction and that takes a number of forms — but one of those forms is an attack on academic freedom and higher education.” On Wednesday night, Bray was blocked from flying out of the country. He wrote on Bluesky: “'Someone' cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second. We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation 'disappeared.”

Rutgers University Bio of Mark Bray

According to the website for Rutgers University, in part it says, “Mark Bray is a historian of Modern Spain and the World, focusing on politics, human rights, and transnational history. He earned his BA in Philosophy with High Honors from Wesleyan University in 2005 and his PhD in History from Rutgers University in 2016.

He has published four books, including the national best-seller Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Melville House 2017), which is the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism and has been translated into seven languages.”

According to some book reviews for “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook”.

The San Francisco Chronicle praised the book's writing, calling Bray's analysis "methodical and informative" and his arguments "incisive and cohesive".

Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post commented that "the book's most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and clobbering white supremacists".

In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Luca Provenzano said that the book was "written from a commendable place of engagement and provides a serviceable genealogy for militant anti-fascism in the present", but was also critical of the book, saying that a "closer, more critical look at modern antifa's inception in the 1960s and '70s reveals some of the pitfalls of militant organizing, and a truly credible analysis of anti-fascist protest tactics would need to pay much closer attention to this period."

Fred Shaw, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, called the book "pointed with concise analysis provided by an insider’s perspective", but also said it was "not a page-turner”.

Brennan Center for Justice

According to a report with the Brennan Center for Justice, in part it says, “In late September, President Trump signed an executive order purporting to designate “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization.” A few days later, he issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence. This analysis evaluates the claims made in these documents and their potential damaging effects, drawing on the Brennan Center’s decade of work on the government’s framework for responding to terrorism, both foreign and domestic.

Both the order and the memo are ungrounded in fact and law. Acting on them would violate free speech rights, potentially threatening any person or group holding any one of a broad array of disfavored views with investigation and prosecution”.

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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