- Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Zinn Education Project — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:41:25 +0000

Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States has been chronicling U.S. history from the bottom up.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History tells U.S. history from the point of view of — and in the words of — America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers.

As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles — the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality — were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in U.S. history.

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those. . . whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.” Packed with vivid details and telling quotations, Zinn’s award-winning classic continues to revolutionize the way U.S. history is taught and remembered.

The book has appeared in popular media, like The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Good Will Hunting, Lady Bird, and the History Channel documentary The People Speak. [Publisher’s description.]

More than two million copies sold.

The 35th anniversary edition, published in November of 2015, includes a new introduction by Anthony Arnove. He begins,

Howard Zinn fundamentally changed the way millions of people think about history with A People’s History of the United States. He would be the first to say, however, that he didn’t do so alone. The book grew out of his awareness of the importance of social movements throughout U.S. history, some of which he played an active role in during the 1960s and 1970s and beyond, namely the Civil Rights Movement, mass mobilizations to end the Vietnam War, as well as other antiwar movements, and the many movements for higher wages and workers’ rights and the rights of women, Latinos, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and others.

ISBN: 9780062397348 | HarperCollins

Teacher Quotes

As a teacher, the Zinn Education Project website is invaluable because it provides activities that directly relate to A People’s History. Last week we did The People vs. Columbus, et al. which places all the parties involved in the arrival of Columbus on trial for the murder of the Tainos. The activity was so interactive that teachers from other classrooms had to ask us to quiet down. Students were able to better understand the motives and consequences behind the arrival.

Even though A People’s History can be a bit difficult for some students, the activities on the Zinn Education Project website makes the content accessible regardless of their reading level.

—Julian Hipkins III

HIgh School Administrator, Washington, District of Columbia

My first lesson as a student teacher was using an excerpt from A People’s History of the United States to teach about Columbus. I was working at Booker T. Washington Middle School in NYC. A student raised her hand and said, “Howard Zinn is my uncle!” I was honored, my hero’s niece! For Christmas, I got a signed copy!

—Francesca Miller

Teacher, New York, New York

More than thirty years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Howard Zinn on a cross-country flight to check out graduate programs. Despite my being somewhat star-struck, he was one of those easy to “fall into conversation with” seatmates — kind, engaging, and interested in why I was traveling.

When I revealed that I was considering becoming a social studies teacher, he said “You must do that. The world needs teachers like the one you will be.” The voice of the universe had spoken and I have been a classroom teacher for the past thirty years, using parts of A People’s History of the United States and his inspirational approach to understanding the American experience.

—Annie Barnes

High School Humanities Teacher, Los Angeles, California

I grew up very trusting (too trusting) of the mainstream media and the accounts of our nations history from my textbooks. For years I was under the impression that the United States of America was the greatest nation in the world with no flaws — the epitome of democratic perfection. I would sing the national anthem proudly at baseball games and digest all the stories of our founding fathers that led me to idolization.

Then I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and everything changed. I became more curious about who was writing the history and their motivations. I developed a lens by which to critically judge the events and accounts I read in newspapers and history books. I was more thoughtful about a mainstream version of our history informed how another might see the world differently than me.

His book was the catalyst — opening me to a deeper understanding of myself, my biases and how they manifested subconsciously into sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of intolerance. After doing more work, reading books like The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I found my way with conviction into activism. Each day I do this work I feel increasingly more empowered to be an aware and mindful ally to the Movement for Black Lives and other movements who struggle to dismantle systems of violence and oppression.

—Brendan Orsinger

Organizer with the James Reeb Voting Rights Project, District of Columbia

I read A People’s History of the United States in the summer before my junior year of high school — fifteen years ago now. It was an interesting time. This would have been 2005-2006, so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were well underway, and I was beginning to pay attention to what those around me were saying about war.

As I sat in Boston Common reading my paperback copy of A People’s History, I must have had dozens of people come up to me to tell me how much it had changed their lives. Some were former students, some were fans, some were college students reading Zinn for the first time. Howard Zinn gave me a gift — a radical awakening. His work has that kind of power. You don’t forget injustice easily, and he unearths the injustices the other textbooks would rather forget.

I had the distinct honor of meeting Zinn when he gave the opening remarks at an adaptation of Grace Paley’s work. For all that Zinn was — activist, educator, historian, pacifist, mensch — he reminded me of why our people fight for justice. I love the long, anti-capitalist, anti-white supremacist tradition he carried forward as a Jew. We are obligated by our religion to fight for all who are oppressed, and every time I read Zinn, I am graced with that reminder, and that memory.

I believe in the power of radical change through progressive education and fully support the work of the Zinn Education Project.

—Becky Eidelman

Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Graduate Student, Boston, Massachusetts

A People’s History of the United States makes my students think. They are shocked by it, moved by it, question it, challenge it, and are motivated to find out more of our history because of it.

—Ralph J. Coffey

High School Social Studies Teacher, South Bronx, New York

I have used Howard Zinn’s book for years with high school students. I have begged for money to buy classroom sets to have to supplement the regular and AP curriculum. Whenever my students ask for where they can get real history my first choice is to pull this book off my shelf. I have started buying copies to give as graduation gifts for my Social Studies teacher candidates before they go into the field. Zinn has a special place in my heart that I always have to share with anyone who truly cares to know the facts.

In my current Social Studies method’s courses I now require Zinn’s book with my methods textbook. I also have all the Zinn Education Project resources linked to my course page. I use the resources to help teach my preservice teachers how to find underrepresented voices.

One of the issues we deal with is the lack of representation of those who truly built this nation in our curriculum and textbooks. The Zinn Education Project’s resources help bridge this gap. Students appreciate the perspectives of the these missing voices being added.

—Britine Perkins

College Social Studies Teacher Educator, Prairie View, Texas

I am an 8th grade Humanities teacher at Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland.

I just finished chapter 4 of A People’s History of the United States on tyranny with my 8th graders, and I have never seen so many of my students engaged in discussion! One of my normally non-avid readers came up to me at the end of the class and said, “Ms. V, this is such an interesting book!”

I am so proud to be using Howard Zinn’s work! Thank you!

—Marisa Villegas

Middle School Humanities Teacher, Oakland, California

I routinely use A People’s History of the United States in my APUSH class to differentiate between the narrative and facts. We always read the chapter on Christopher Columbus to really set the standard on how history has been romanticized away from truth to promote pure patriotism.

—Tyler George

High School Social Studies Teacher, Clinton, Michigan

From A People’s History of the United States, I use Howard Zinn’s chapter on the U.S. -Mexico War as a starting point to teach my students Imperialism, Manifest Destiny, and Westward Invasion.

Along with the book, students read primary sources from many sources, including Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These sources have even inspired their own anti-war protest signs.

—April Tondelli

History Teacher, Chicago, Illinois

Because of this book, I understood early in my college career the importance of the true, unfiltered words of the actual actors in a historical event. As a result, I was drawn further into the study of history and, eventually, into my career as a history teacher. What A People’s History brought to my attention is that American history is much more interesting than that. Our history is an exciting, sometimes appalling, struggle for power and that makes us just like every other country that has ever existed.

A long list of “good guys” with no one to struggle with is neither a true story nor a good story. It doesn’t resonate because it leads the student to believe that we are all waiting for the next exceptional leader, instead of becoming a force for change in our own communities. A People’s History helped me recognize this as a student of history and inspires my attempt to bring true stories to young people, weary of the inaccessible lists that history teaching has become.

—Reynolds Bodenhamer

HIgh School Social Studies Teacher, Gulfport, Mississippi

In my classroom, I use Chapter One from A People’s History of the United States — the arrival of Columbus — juxtaposed with the “textbook’s” telling of the impact of Columbus’ arrival.

My students focus particularly on the primary sources therein to discuss perspectives of history, and how history is recorded and retold. Who decides which history is learned?

—Stefanie Santangelo

Teacher, Oakton, Virginia

In my first year of teaching 15 years ago, I was browsing local bookstores for resources that could supplement the textbook that I resented. I became a history teacher to help students make history a living part of their lives and the textbook seemed to have the opposite effect. I grabbed A People’s History of the United States and have yet to put it down.

The way in which Howard Zinn makes history compelling for students is undeniable and a resource that I have decided I — and my students — cannot be without. Many students who find themselves in alternative programs will often say that teachers never made school interesting. Zinn’s work gave me the resource I needed to capture the internal sense of justice so many urban students have. As an educator, I am filled with excitement that although I opened the window with the help of Howard Zinn, they have made the effort to examine what is outside.

—Dawn Fontaine

High School Social Studies Teacher, Springfield, Massachusetts

I have been a Howard Zinn fan since I picked up a copy of A People’s History when it first came out. I have cited it in more newspaper opinion columns than I can remember. I also quoted from it many times in my lectures at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where I was on the faculty for 36 years. I recommended the book to my students. I still recommend the book to my union brothers and sisters — I’m the webmaster-editor for the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, a member of the state executive board and a retiree-member of AFT Local 1360. More than a few have bought copies of it.

—Berry Craig

Professor Emeritus of History, West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Louisville, Kentucky

Reading Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as a freshman in college solidified my desire to study history. I was enamored by the book’s passionate prose and its unwavering condemnation of the crimes of the U.S. government. I was equally shocked by the fact that almost none of it was taught in my U.S. history class; it felt like I was reading something forbidden or scandalous, which kept me interested and engaged. Whether conscious of it or not at the time, reading through it with that lens surely also inspired me to study education later on.

—Gertrude Carrington

Social Studies Teacher, New York

Back in high school, I was lucky enough to have a dynamic, outside-of-the-box teacher. Instead of the usual textbooks for our U.S. history class, this teacher gave us a snippet of Howard Zinn.

Thanks to that introduction, A People’s History of the United States became one of the defining books of my young education. That book opened my eyes to new perspectives, concepts, and historical figures that directly impacted my life.

Thanks to that early exposure, I got involved in social justice and human rights work, and now get to help inspire similar awakenings in students today through my work with the Speak Truth to Power education curriculum!

—Andrew Graber

Teacher Educator, Washington, District of Columbia

Reading text from the front lines of strikes, the innards of factory life, the embattled marches of the women’s suffrage movement, and the fields of the tenant farmer, puts a human face on what can seem a faceless “movement.”

—Scott Camillo

High School Social Studies Teacher, Washington, District of Columbia

I will never forget, as a brand new social studies teacher in Brooklyn, being told of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States by veteran teacher Jack Urlich at Sarah J. Hale High School back in 1986.

Jack emphasized that this was the seminal work and could easily be used in the classroom. My students always found the readings refreshing compared to the stale textbooks.

I continue to use A People’s History of the United States in my classroom today.

—John Elfrank-Dana

High School Social Studies Teacher, New York, New York

Reading A People’s History opened my eyes to new ways of teaching writing. On a number of occasions, I taught a course in “Local History,” which asked students to research and write about people, places, and events in their communities. This experience underlined how “history” is a human product, with all its attendant biases and challenges, in terms of “objectivity” or “truth.”

I also used, in classroom instruction, pages from various history textbooks, covering the same events, but showing distinct differences in perspective.

The lesson that stands out is a series of three versions of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, an event that happened to a large extent in Pennsylvania, where our college is located. One text (the most frequently used) gave a bland statement of mere facts and suffered from what we now call “both-siderism.” Another supported the railroad companies’ view of the strike and emphasized how destructive to commerce the strike was. A third (Zinn’s) supported the workers’ perspective and pointed out the nearly slave wages and working conditions of that time.

This lesson did lots to open up students’ eyes to history as a human document, made by us. It inspired students to write more truly and with more interest in their chosen topics. I believe Zinn’s work helped me see how we can make the past, personal and social, more alive and honest.

I tried to bring such ideas to my final position at the college, when I directed faculty development, encouraging my colleagues to create learning experiences that students could attach to, feel real ownership of. Thus, actually doing better work, and learning more. If I hadn’t taught English, I would have taught History. And, I would have used Howard Zinn’s text as the absolute antidote to “status quo” teaching.

—James Benner

College English Teacher (Retired), Manasquan, New Jersey

Read more quotes from teachers about the impact of Howard Zinn and A People’s History of the United States on their work.

Chapter 1. Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress
Chapter 2. Drawing the Color Line
Chapter 3. Persons of Mean and Vile Condition
Chapter 4. Tyranny Is Tyranny
Chapter 5. A Kind of Revolution
Chapter 6. The Intimately Oppressed
Chapter 7. As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs
Chapter 8. We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God
Chapter 9. Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom
Chapter 10. The Other Civil War
Chapter 11. Robber Barons and Rebels
Chapter 12. The Empire and the People
Chapter 13. The Socialist Challenge
Chapter 14. War Is the Health of the State
Chapter 15. Self-help in Hard Times
Chapter 16. A Peoples War?
Chapter 17. Or Does It Explode?
Chapter 18. The Impossible Victory: Vietnam
Chapter 19. Surprises
Chapter 20. The Seventies: Under Control?
Chapter 21. Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus
Chapter 22. The Unreported Resistance
Chapter 23. The Coming Revolt of the Guards
Chapter 24. The Clinton Presidency
Chapter 25. The 2000 Election and the “War on Terrorism”

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Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War at Home

Zinn Education Project — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:31:58 +0000

Whenever I tell my students that I was in the military, they just stare at me in disbelief; my pacifist leanings are well known within the tiny community where I teach. However, when I tell them that I joined in order to afford the cost of college, there is a unanimous nod of understanding. The financial worry of college is heavy on their eleventh grade minds, and the idea of four years of service doesn’t sound too bad when the recruiter waves $50,000 in their faces. As odd a match as I was to the military, I soon found that I wasn’t alone. Among the reasons why my peers joined, none included such patriotic declarations as “to serve my country” or “to defend Democracy.” Instead, the reasons were, more often than not, simply financial. We were mostly just working-class kids looking for any chance at a real opportunity. Indeed, Alex Molnar’s letter to President Bush was the letter all of our parents wanted to write and the letter no politician wants to answer, because it picks at the scab of class issues in the military.

As a soldier, I was part of the massive public affairs machine during the 1991 Gulf War, doing “Hi, Mom”s for the troops as my commander escorted media pools to sanitized “events” so that the journalists could file enough copy and capture enough footage to earn their day’s pay. It was disheartening to see how the journalists responded — unquestioningly, and thankfully. I was never quite sure if they were massively incompetent or if they understood our sleight of hand, but didn’t mind as long as the show was entertaining. The lesson was clear: there is a serious vacuum in our Fourth Estate, and it has become part of the class problem in this country. The selections in Chapter 22 are a vital tool for showing students the darker side of United States military intervention and the role the media play in keeping it secret. It is a side we won’t see on TV but will hear about from the ordinary soldiers and citizens like those in this book.

Reprinted from Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press.

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Bush II and the “War on Terror”

Zinn Education Project — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:33:37 +0000

Everything seemed changed in the world after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Or was it? True, people in the United States experienced a very real fear. After all, it was the first time we were attacked on our own soil. But when we truly subject the rhetoric of the Bush administration to scrutiny, it becomes clear that much did not change. The politics of fear are part of our history. If we move backward to Salem in 1692 or move forward to McCarthyism in the 1950s, it is easy to recall the politics of fear that encouraged irrational reactions to perceived threats. Internal enemies have always threatened the status quo; they were Loyalists in the eighteenth century, Communists from the mid-nineteenth century through 1989, and today they are terrorists.

Since September 11, 2001, the balance between civil liberties and security has often tipped in favor of the latter. But this imbalance is also part of our history. Only seven years after the Bill of Rights was signed, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. During World War I, a new and more virulent rendition of these acts became law. In the wake of September 11, we saw the passage of the PATRIOT Act. The voices in this chapter recognize that we are fighting old enemies in a new political package. They ask us to listen carefully to the reasons the Bush administration gave for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They ask us to learn from our past mistakes and to question governmental decisions that have lead us into new wars.

Reprinted from Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press.

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What War Looks Like

Zinn Education Project — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:30:29 +0000

By Howard Zinn

In all the solemn statements by self-important politicians and newspaper columnists about a coming war against Iraq, and even in the troubled comments by some who are opposed to the war, there is something missing. The talk is about strategy and tactics, geopolitics and personalities. It is about air war and ground war, weapons of mass destruction, arms inspections, alliances, oil, and “regime change.”

What is missing is what an American war on Iraq will do to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary human beings who are not concerned with geopolitics and military strategy, and who just want their children to live, to grow up. They are not concerned with “national security” but with personal security, with food and shelter and medical care and peace. [Continue reading by selecting “Download to Read in Full” below.]

This article was originally published by Rethinking Schools.

Classroom Story

Every Memorial Day, I use the article What War Looks Like to teach about the real — and unseen and unspoken — costs of war. As Howard Zinn said, “wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.” I ask the students to think small about big wars and the human costs on both sides of the conflict. I think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced, injured, and dead due to the U.S. invasion in 2002.

Recently, I think of conversations that my students and I were having about a potential war in Iran and again mentioned that any war is one against children, women, and other innocents. Our current wars are never only felt by the soldiers fighting them. I believe strongly that for our society to live peacefully with other countries, students must know the human costs of war on every side of any conflict.

—Anthony Browne

High School Social Studies Teacher, Boston, Massachusetts

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A Revolution of Values

Zinn Education Project — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:53:21 +0000

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks to a crowd of an estimated 400,000 people at the United Nations Plaza after an anti-Vietnam War march, New York City, April 15, 1967. Source: Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech in New York City on the occasion of his becoming co-chairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (subsequently renamed Clergy and Laity Concerned).

Titled “Beyond Vietnam,” it was his first major speech on the war in Vietnam — what the Vietnamese aptly call the American War. In these excerpts, King links the escalating U.S. commitment to that war with its abandonment of the commitment to social justice at home. His call for a “shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society” and for us to “struggle for a new world” has acquired even greater urgency than when he issued it decades ago.

The speech concludes:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death….

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. . .

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain . . .

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful — struggle for a new world.

Full text and audio of Beyond Vietnam online at AmericanRhetoric.com.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had issued a statement against the Vietnam War the year before after the murder of Sammy Younge Jr.

Find related resources for the classroom below.

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Democracy Now!

Zinn Education Project — Fri, 02 Nov 2001 03:01:11 +0000

“In our judgment, this is the best Monday-through-Friday news broadcast in the United States. The news headlines that open each hour are a rundown of vital stories often ignored or distorted in the mainstream media. Headlines are followed by several in-depth reports, many of which make ideal classroom viewing: striking fast-food workers, conflict in Egypt, NSA revelations, stop-and-frisk policing, the true history of the 1963 March on Washington, drone strikes, the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the climate crisis, and more.” — Rethinking Schools

Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides listeners with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates — debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.

The program provides background information for teachers and parents. In addition, segments of the program could be used in middle and high school classrooms.

Available in Spanish.

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Resistance in Paradise: Rethinking 100 Years of U.S. Involvement in the Caribbean and the Pacific

Zinn Education Project — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:49:45 +0000

Over one hundred years ago, in 1898, the United States became the ruling power in Pacific and Caribbean islands including Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and American Samoa. U.S. involvement altered the course of history of these countries, significantly affecting their cultures, political systems, and social structures.

Resistance in Paradise was written by a collaborative team of educators and activists that included people from each of the featured countries and territories. It is designed as a resource for high school and college classrooms, community groups, faith communities, and others who are interested in exploring the U.S. involvement beyond the borders of North America. Each chapter provides a historical overview, selected readings from original source materials, and teaching ideas.

This volume is filled with illustrations, cartoons, photographs, poems, stories, and historical and contemporary documents. All readings are formatted for easy reproduction for classroom or group use.

Unlike standard textbooks, Resistance in Paradise provides insight into the perspectives of people whose lives and homelands have been directly affected by the Spanish-American War. As a Filipina American, I greatly appreciate this feature of the book because so often textbook writing on the war excludes the voices of people of color. In addition to including multiple perspectives, Resistance in Paradise provides tools such as primary sources, role play activities, and reflective writing exercises, regarding themes such as international relations and human rights, to make the causes and consequences of the war relevant to students. It is an excellent resource that can help students sharpen their critical thinking skills and gain a more balanced understanding of history. — Darlene Germino, humanities for teaching student, Seattle University

The book is out of print, however a PDF of the book is available for free online at ERIC.

ISBN: 9780910082334
Published by the American Friends Service Committee and the School District of Philadelphia
Out of print.

Excerpt

The U.S. Takes Over Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico maintained its status as a colony of Spain until the end of the nineteenth century, during which time Spain lost most of its other colonies in Central and South America to domestic revolutions. American business interests were eager to expand into the Caribbean to profit from fertile land and new markets. They looked for a way to edge Spain out of the region. Spain’s control over Puerto Rico came to an abrupt end with the 1898 invasion of U.S. troops. U.S. Marines invaded Spain’s remaining overseas colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. During the Spanish-American War U.S. troops invaded Puerto Rico at Guanica on July 25, 1898. There were no Puerto Rican casualties, however, 50 Spanish and U.S. troops died in that battle. The war ended before any heavy fighting began in Puerto Rico. At the end of war, the U.S. demanded Puerto Rico as ‘war payment’ from Spain in the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898 along with the Philippines and Cuba.

In 1900, the island changed from military to civilian authority with implementation of the Foraker Organic Act, which established the island as a U.S. unincorporated territory. Later that year, President McKinley appointed George Allen as Puerto Rico’s first Governor. In 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Jones Act, which was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. This Act extended U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans for the first time. It also established a locally elected Senate and House of Representatives, reflective of the organization of the US Congress in Washington. In 1948 the U.S. Congress gave Puerto Rico the authority to elect its own governor. Puerto Rico developed its own constitution as a Commonwealth under the leadership of its first elected governor, Luis Munoz Marin. Under Commonwealth status, Puerto Ricans did not pay federal income tax or vote in presidential elections, although they paid social security, received federal welfare and served in the armed forces. The U.S. Congress controlled Puerto Rico’s laws, courts, currency, customs, immigration, defense, foreign relations and trade. English was imposed as the language of instruction in Puerto Rican schools, although neither the students nor most teachers could speak it.

U.S. corporations moved into Puerto Rico, acquiring vast tracts of land to set up sugar and tobacco plantations. In the process many Puerto Rican farmers lost their land and became poorly paid laborers on the plantations, while others moved to Hawaii or Cuba to cut sugar cane. For many Puerto Ricans immigrating to the mainland U.S. seemed to be the best solution in their search for better jobs and new options for sustaining their families.

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Barefoot Gen: The Bombing of Hiroshima As Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Boy

Zinn Education Project — Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:35:14 +0000

Opening in the rundown city of Hiroshima, we witness the events leading up to the bombing through the eyes of Gen, a young boy growing up in post-war Japan. Fortunately when the bomb detonates, Gen is shielded by a stone wall. Others are not so lucky and are burned to death instantly by the 5000 degree heat flash. As Gen runs home to find his family, he sees victims of the bomb blast staggering around shocked and helpless in the rubble, their skin burnt and melting.

When Gen reaches home he finds that his house has collapsed, trapping his father, brother and sister in the wreckage. Pulling his pregnant mother to safety, Gen watches as the rest of his family are burnt alive.

What follows is a night-marish journey into the unimaginable horrors of atomic war and the struggle to survive in a place that has been destroyed by the most devastating device ever conceived by man. [Producer’s description.]

As teachers know, some classroom materials invariably work, no matter the group of students. Barefoot Gen is one of them.

Barefoot Gen, a Japanese animated feature film, tells the story of Gen (pronounced with a hard “G”), a young boy who, along with his mother, survives the bombing of Hiroshima.

The story chronicles their struggles as they try to rebuild their lives from the bomb’s ashes. It is based on the critically acclaimed, semi-autobiographical Japanese comic book series Hadashi no Gen, by Keiji Nakazawa. Both the comic strip and the feature film oppose the Japanese government’s actions during World War II and include criticism of the intense poverty and suffering forced onto the Japanese people by their government’s war effort.

In the lesson, Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb, Wayne Au describes how he introduces the film to high school students and how he follows up with haiku written by survivors of the bombings and students’ own writing.

Trailer

Produced by Geneon. Japanese/English subtitles.

Check your streaming platforms to find Barefoot Gen.

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Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb

Zinn Education Project — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:21:28 +0000

As teachers know, some classroom materials invariably work, no matter the group of students. Barefoot Gen is one of them.

Barefoot Gen, a Japanese animated feature film, tells the story of Gen (pronounced with a hard “G”), a young boy who, along with his mother, survives the bombing of Hiroshima.

This lesson was in Rethinking Our Classrooms, Volume 1. For more lessons like “Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb,” order Rethinking Our Classrooms, Vol 1 with essays, teaching ideas, classroom narratives, and hands-on examples that show how teachers can promote the values of community, justice, and equality while building academic skills.

See Table of Contents.

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Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can’t Kick Militarism, An Illustrated Guide

Zinn Education Project — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:06:36 +0000

This comic book takes on the most active, powerful and destructive military in the world. Hard-hitting, carefully documented, and heavily illustrated, Addicted to War reveals why the United States has been involved in more wars in recent years than any other country. Find out who benefits from these military adventures, who pays and who dies. Updated to include the war in Iraq.

“A witty and devastating portrait of U.S. military policy.” —Howard Zinn

“Political comics at its best. Bitterly amusing, lively and richly informative. For people of all ages who want to understand the link between U.S. militarism, foreign policy, and corporate greed at home and abroad.” —Michael Parenti

“Addicted to War is must reading for all Americans who are concerned with understanding the true nature of U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at home.” —Martin Sheen

ISBN: 9781849352178 | AK Press

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