On November 7, 2008, Howard Zinn offered a lecture on “The Meaning of Sacco and Vanzetti” at the Dante Alighieri Society Italian Cultural Center, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In his lecture, Howard Zinn indicated the relevance of the Sacco and Vanzetti case for the United States today. Nearly 250 people attended the event, sponsored by the Sacco & Vanzetti Commemoration Society (SVCS) and hosted by the Dante Alighieri Society.

Historian Bob D’Attilio started the program with notes about the funeral procession that took place in Boston in August 1927. Actor and film maker David Rothauser introduced Zinn’s lecture with readings from the letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. David Rothauser is the writer/producer of the docudrama, The Diary of Sacco and Vanzetti.

Download the low-definition video of Howard Zinn’s lecture online (35 min., Windows .wav format).

Related Resources

• Text version of lecture
• More information about Sacco and Vanzetti at saccoandvanzetti.org

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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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Bold and empowering words from America’s struggles, past and present, are resurrected here by some of our leading living voices. An all-star cast joins authors Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove to perform the rousing words of dissent that have shaped and quickened the pulse of a nation. This audio CD consists of sixteen readings thoughtfully selected by Zinn and Arnove from Voices of a People’s History of the United States, the primary source companion to Zinn’s seminal A People’s History of the United States. [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9781583227527 | Seven Stories Press

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Features a preface and afterword read by the author himself.  [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9780060754143 | HarperAudio

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Although the members of the San Patricio Battalion were treated as traitors and deserters by the U.S. government, Chieftains’ founder and frontman Paddy Moloney says,

The men of the San Patricio Battalion are remembered by generations of Mexicans to this day as heroes who fought bravely against an unjust and thinly veiled war of aggression.

Tablet with the names of soldiers from the San Patricio Battalion, who were hung in San Jacinto Square, Mexico City.

San Patricio brings their story to life through heart-stirring ballads and effervescent dance songs from both countries, including traditional “sones” that the San Patricios might have heard while in Mexico, and Irish airs and reels that evoke the homeland they left behind.

The Chieftains rekindle their Grammy-winning partnership with Ry Cooder for San Patricio, illuminating musical and historical bonds between Ireland and Mexico. [Publisher’s description.]

Distributed by Concord Music Group.

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These songs, written and recorded nearly twenty years later, have been carefully remastered from the original acetate discs and are presented with a previously unpublished letter by Guthrie to the judge in the case. Produced by Moses Asch. Reissue compiled by Anthony Seeger and Jeff Place. [Publisher’s description.]

Here are the lyrics to one of the songs:

Two Good Men
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

Two good men a long time gone,
Two good men a long time gone
(Two good men a long time gone, oh, gone),
Sacco, Vanzetti a long time gone,
Left me here to sing this song.

Say, there, did you hear the news?
Sacco worked at trimming shoes;
Vanzetti was a peddling man,
Pushed his fish cart with his hands.

Sacco was born across the sea
Somewhere over in Italy;
Vanzetti was born of parents fine,
Drank the best Italian wine.

Sacco sailed the sea one day,
Landed up in Boston Bay;
Vanzetti sailed the ocean blue,
Landed up in Boston, too.

Sacco’s wife three children had,
Sacco was a family man;
Vanzetti was a dreaming man,
His book was always in his hand.

Sacco earned his bread and butter
Being the factory’s best shoe cutter;
Vanzetti spoke both day and night,
Told the workers how to fight.

I’ll tell you if you ask me
‘Bout this payroll robbery;
Two clerks was killed by the shoe factory
On the street in South Braintree.

Judge Thayer told his friends around
He would cut the radicals down;
Anarchist bastards was the name
Judge Thayer called these two good men.

I’ll tell you the prosecutors’ names,
Katsman, Adams, Williams, Kane;
The judge and lawyers strutted down,
They done more tricks than circus clowns.

Vanzetti docked here in 1908;
He slept along the dirty streets,
He told the workers “Organize”
And on the electric chair he dies.

All you people ought to be like me,
And work like Sacco and Vanzetti;
And every day find some ways to fight
On the union side for workers’ rights.

I’ve got no time to tell this tale,
The dicks and bulls are on my trail;
But I’ll remember these two good men
That died to show me how to live.

All you people in Suassos Lane
Sing this song and sing it plain.
All you folks that’s coming along,
Jump in with me, and sing this song.

© Woody Guthrie

Published by Smithsonian Folkways | More information

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Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom. Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

In 1962, Bob Dylan first performed The Death of Emmett Till, also called The Ballad of Emmett Till. Below are two verses of the song:

Click image to download 10-page PDF of lyrics from “Broadside Reunion, Vol. 6.”

It was down in Mississippi not so long ago

When a young boy from Chicago town walked through a southern door.

This most fateful tragedy you should all remember well.

The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.

….

If you can’t speak out against this kind of thing,

a crime that’s so unjust

Your eyes are filled with dead men’s dirt,

your mind is filled with dust

Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and

your blood it must refuse to flow.

….

The full lyrics can be found on the Bob Dylan website. Click here and then select “Enter Site” at bottom center of the home page. (Lyrics © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music.)

You can listen to a recording of Bob Dylan singing the song on the Democracy Now!’s/WBAI. The August 26 full broadcast also includes interviews with documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp (The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till) and Clenora Hudson-Weems, Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia and author of the book Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement.

The song is included on the Smithsonian Institution Broadside Reunion CD, track number 203.

Bob Dylan Performs “The Ballad of the Emmett Till” from a 1962 Recording

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Liner notes and song samples.

Produced Smithsonian Folkways.

Related Resource

Interview with Ella Jenkins by the National Visionary Leadership Project. The bio on the interview begins: When folk singer, Ella Jenkins, sang the words “You’ll sing a song, and I’ll sing a song, and we’ll sing a song together”, she gathered the world’s children around her like a cultural pied piper. The Grammy winning children’s folk artist has entertained children in a musical career spanning nearly fifty years. This has been accomplished through her performances in all seven continents, leading young people in song using her unique call and response methods. Taught the harmonica as a child, Jenkins has mastered over fifty world instruments such as the ukulele, kalumba drum, and maracas. She paired these in her compositions with traditional instruments like the piano, guitar, and tambourine. Yet, these instruments have become the tools Ella Jenkins uses to teach respect, cultural and self esteem in harmony with the joy of musical expression. Full bio and interview.

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Alternative Radio

Alternative Radio has an archive of more than 50 talks and interviews by Howard Zinn. Here is a list of the topics:

#ZINH044 Against War

#ZINH043 The South and National Politics

#ZINH042 Speaking to 8th Grade Students

#ZINH041 Three Holy Wars

#ZINH040 I Was a Pushcart Peddler, Ph.D.

#ZINH039 I Am a Trade Unionist

#ZINH038 Against Discouragement

#ZINH037 War & Civil Disobedience

#ZINH036 Overcoming Obstacles

#ZINH035 A World Without Borders

#ZINH034 Air-Brushing History

#ZINH033 Critical Thinking

#ZINH032 Resistance & the Role of Artists

#ZINH031 History Matters

#ZINH030 Confronting Government Lies

#ZINH029 War on Iraq: A Dissenting View

#ZINH028 The Back Seat Interviews

#ZINH027 Can the System be Fixed?

#ZINH026-ZINH038 Emma Goldman, Anarchism & War Resistance + Against Discouragement

#ZINH026 Emma Goldman, Anarchism & War Resistance

#ZINH025 Artists in a Time of War

#ZINH024 War and Democracy

#ZINH023 Stories Hollywood Never Tells

#ZINH022 Economic Justice

#ZINH021 Bringing Democracy Alive

#ZINH020 The Future of History

#ZINH019 U.S. Imperialism & the War with Spain

#ZINH018 The Case of Sacco & Vanzetti

#ZINH017 The Zinn Reader

#ZINH016 LaGuardia, Upton Sinclair, Death Penalty

#ZINH015 You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train

#ZINH014 How Social Change Happens

#ZINH013 A People’s History of the United States

#ZINH012 Reflections

#ZINH011 The Use & Abuse of History

#ZINH010 Emma Goldman: A Dangerous Woman

#ZINH009 One Step Ahead of the Landlord

#ZINH008 1492-1992: The Legacy of Columbus

#ZINH007 Just & Unjust Wars

#ZINH006 Second Thoughts on the First Amendment

#ZINH003 Democracy, Dissent and Disobedience

#ZINH-ZIRD001 Talking It Up

#ZINH-TERS001 An Evening with Zinn & Terkel

#ZINH-KNOE001 Interviews

#ZINH-JAJE001 Debate on Just War

#ZINH-HAAR001 Debate on the CIA

#ZINH-ETAL002 Stop the Death Penalty!

#ZINH-BUCW001 Reform or Revolution

#ZINH-ARNA-ETAL002 Voices of a People’s History

#ZINH-ARNA-ETAL001 Iraq Under Siege

#ROYA-ZINH001 In Conversation

#CHON-ZINH001 The Cold War & the University

#ARNA-GOOA-ZINH001 Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal

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In this instant classic, recorded on the eve of the quincentennial, legendary historian Howard Zinn returns to the themes he popularized in his masterful A People’s History of the United States — how we interpret history, and what that tells us about the struggles of the vast majority of folks typically written out of the narrative. With his trademark wit, erudition, and generosity, he stands history on its head, to better illuminate, understand, and act upon the past, present, and future. [Publisher’s description.]

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