He witnessed Columbus present himself as a devout Christian while he kidnapped, maimed, and killed the indigenous people of Hispaniola in pursuit of gold.

Film Clip Description

Bartolomé de Las Casas’ account “Devastation of the Indies” is read here by John Sayles on October 22, 2004, at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York, NY. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.

More video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.

The post Bartolomé de Las Casas: “Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

During the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 20, 2019, the Pacific Climate Warriors in Portland showed up at the city rally “carrying their identity with pride and speaking their truths” as Pacific islanders fighting for their homes. The Pacific Climate Warriors is a network of diverse people from around the Pacific and the world that continue to fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

Their message: We are not drowning. We are fighting.

In this short film, watch and listen to them explain why they are there and what they hope to accomplish through their activism.

The post Pacific Climate Warriors Speak at Climate Strike appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

See the short films below and visit her website to learn more.

“Tell Them”

“Rise” Featuring Aka Niviâna

“History Project”

“Dear Matafele Peinem”

Watch More

The post Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Photo by Sean Scheidt

The musical The Moment Was Now is set in Reconstruction era Baltimore. The story reveals the search for unity among the dynamic leaders of powerful social movements of the time with a focus on the rights people recently freed from slavery, women’s right to vote, and labor rights. The conflicts and possibilities unfold in music and spoken word at a meeting convened by Frederick Douglass.

The musical addresses the same themes, and includes five of the key leaders, as the Zinn Education Project lesson When the Impossible Suddenly Became Possible: A Reconstruction Mixer.

Students from the Baltimore School for the Arts enjoyed the play and dialogue with the actors. Photo by Patrick Applegate

There is now a film version of the musical available for classroom use. Teachers can choose from a 30-minute highlights version of the musical and/or selected scenes like the one below. Either would be a great companion to the “When the Impossible” lesson and other lessons on the Reconstruction era.

The Moment Was Now musical was performed in Baltimore in 2019 and early 2020 for enthusiatic audiences of labor union members, community activists, and high school students.

The Moment Was Now features the following 19th century leaders:

Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in 1838 as a ship caulker in Baltimore and became one the most prominent leaders of the abolition movement, for women’s rights, and for social justice for all.

Isaac Myers was a caulker in the same ship yard that Frederick Douglass worked, and after the Civil War organized Black workers into unions in Baltimore and across the country, forming what was called the (Colored) National Labor Union, with Douglass’ assistance.

William Sylvis was a white iron worker and president of the National Labor Union (NLU), founded in Baltimore in 1866. By 1869 it the NLU had more than 300,000 workers, overwhelmingly white males.

Francis Harper, was an African American teacher, abolitionist, feminist, and poet was born and raised in Baltimore in 1825. She taught in the South during Reconstruction.

Susan B. Anthony was a white abolitionist, suffragette, and an organizer of women workers. She gave her final speech in 1906 in Baltimore.

Jay Gould was a white robber baron, railroad mogul, and Wall street speculator.

Learn more from a full, annotated list of scenes.

See the trailer and a selected scene below. Use this request form to write to the playwright/producer (Gene Bruskin) to request streaming access for your students.

Trailer

Scene

Issac Myers (performed  by Darryl! LC Moch), an African American Baltimore boat builder asks white labor leader William Sylvis if his “We” includes me in this song from “The Moment Was Now.”

Find more resources to teach about Reconstruction in the Zinn Education Project campaign to Teach Reconstruction. The resources include recommended lessons, films, books, websites, digital archives, and a student project.

Learn more in the Zinn Education Project national report, “Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction,” and find teaching resources on Reconstruction below.

The post The Moment Was Now: Musical About Reconstruction appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Harriet Hanson Robinson’s Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls (1898).

Harriet Hanson Robinson  began working in the textile mills when she was ten years old. Boston capitalist began building mills and hiring young women from rural New England as their labor force assuming them to be docile. Instead they organzied  and agitated for better working conditions.

Film clip description

Harriet Hanson Robinson recalls a “turn out” or strike and the working conditions of the women in the factory in the 1830s. Robinson’s account is read by Lili Taylor on October 22, 2004, at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, New York, NY. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.

Lili Taylor reads Harriet Hanson Robinson’s Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls (1898), recalling a strike in the 1830s from Voices of a People’s History on Vimeo.

More video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.

The post Harriet Hanson Robinson: “Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls.” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Sylvia Woods (1919) read by Alana Arenas from Voices of a People’s History on Vimeo.

Sylvia Woods’ “You Have to Fight for Freedom” (1973)

I was born March 15, 1909. My father was a roofer. In those days they put slates on the roofs and he was a slater. It was a very skilled job. You had to nail the slate. They used to make a fancy diamond with different colors. . .

And he was a union man. There was a dual union — one for whites and one for Blacks. He said we should have one big union but a white and a Black is better than none. He was making big money — eight dollars a day. I used to brag that “My father makes eight dollars a day.” But he taught me that, “You got to belong to the union, even if it’s a Black union. If I wasn’t in the union I wouldn’t make eight dollars a day.”

When I was maybe 10 years old, I changed schools. On the way to school, I had to go through a park that was for white people only. We could walk through the park but we couldn’t stop at all, just pass through it. There were swings in this park and, oh, I so much wanted sometimes to just stop and swing a little while, but we couldn’t because we were Black. I would walk through this park to my school where there weren’t any swings.

Every morning all the kids would line up according to classrooms and we would have prayers and sing the “Star Spangled Banner” and then we’d march to our respective groups after this business.

I decided I wasn’t going to sing the “Star Spangled Banner.” I just stood there every morning and I didn’t sing it. One morning, one of the teachers noticed that I wasn’t doing it. So she very quietly called me over and asked me why didn’t I sing the “Star Spangled Banner.” I said I just didn’t feel like singing it. So she said, “Well then you have to go in to the principal and explain that to him. All of the children in the school take part and you’ve got to do it too.” OK, I went in to the principal and he asked me why I wasn’t singing the “Star Spangled Banner.”

Finally I told him. “Because it says, ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave’ and this is not the land of the free. I don’t know who’s brave but I’m not going to sing it any more.” Then he said, “Why you’ve been singing it all the time haven’t you? How come you want to stop now?” And I told him about coming through the park and if I could not swing in those swings in the park, and I couldn’t sit in the park, and I could only walk in Shakespeare Park, then it couldn’t be the land of the free. “Who’s free?” He didn’t say anything.

Then he said, “Well, you could pledge allegiance to your flag.” I said, “It’s not my flag. The flag is with freedom. If the land is free and the flag is mine, then how come I can’t do like the white kids?”

The post Sylvia Woods: “You Have to Fight for Freedom” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

We highly recommend this interview with Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef for economics teachers. It could be used in teacher education programs or shared by teachers in a social studies department. It would also be interesting to evaluate district economics standards or economics textbooks against the principles outlined in the excerpt from Max-Neef’s talk below.

Manfred Max-Neef is interviewed by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! He won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book, From the Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics.

Interview Excerpt

AMY GOODMAN: And if you’re teaching young economists, the principles you would teach them, what they’d be?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The principles, you know, of an economics which should be are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.

One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy.

Two, development is about people and not about objects.

Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.

Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.

Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.

And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations. But if there is an economic interest, I mean, you forget about life, not only of other living beings, but even of human beings. If you go through that list, one after the other, what we have today is exactly the opposite.

AMY GOODMAN: Go back to three: growth and development. Explain that further.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Growth is a quantitative accumulation. Development is the liberation of creative possibilities. Every living system in nature grows up to a certain point and stops growing. You are not growing anymore, nor he nor me. But we continue developing ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t be dialoguing here now. So development has no limits. Growth has limits. And that is a very big thing, you know, that economists and politicians don’t understand. They are obsessed with the fetish of economic growth.

Watch the full interview

The post Rethinking the Economy: Ideas from Chilean Economist Manfred Max-Neef appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Writer, poet, activist Langston Hughes. Photo: Blackpast.org.

Langston Hughes’ poem Ballad of Roosevelt (1934) captures the feeling of being “damn tired” of waiting for support from the political leadership.

Ballad of Roosevelt

The pot was empty,

The cupboard was bare.

I said, Papa,

What’s the matter here?

I’m waitin’ on Roosevelt, son,

Roosevelt, Roosevelt,

Waitin’ on Roosevelt, son.

The rent was due,

And the lights was out.

I said, Tell me, Mama,

What’s it all about?

We’re waitin’ on Roosevelt, son,

Roosevelt, Roosevelt, [Continue reading.]

Langston Hughes’ poem is read by Danny Glover May 2, 2007, at The Great Hall at Cooper Union, New York, NY. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.

Many more video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.

The post Langston Hughes: “Ballad of Roosevelt” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

After organizing the first U.S. Colored Troops, Henry McNeal Turner (1834-1915) later joined them as Chaplain. He then became a delegate to the state constitutional convention in Atlanta. In 1868 Turner was elected as a representative to the Georgia state legislature.

Soon after, he was among twenty-four legislators expelled for the “crime” of being Black. Read full text of speech from BlackPast.org.

Danny Glover reads Henry McNeal Turner, “Eligibility of Colored Members to Seats in the Georgia Legislature” (September 3, 1868) from Voices of a People’s History.

Film Clip Description

This clip is an excerpt from Henry McNeal Turner’s address to his fellow legislators denouncing the expulsions. Turner’s, “Eligibility of Colored Members to Seats in the Georgia Legislature” is read by Danny Glover, May 2, 2007, at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York, New York. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.

More video clips of stories from people’s history can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.

More About Henry McNeal Turner

• This Far By Faith
• New Georgia Encyclopedia
• find more resources below

The post Henry McNeal Turner: “Eligibility of Colored Members to Seats in the Georgia Legislature” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Activist and environmentalist, Chief Joseph. Photo: National Geographic.

Chief Joseph led the resistance to the ongoing encroachment of Nez Percé’s lands in the 1870s, but his people came under fierce attack in 1877.  He was forced to lead his followers toward the Canadian border, where they were defeated forty miles from the border, in Montant on October 5, 1877. He was sent to Indian Territories in Oklahoma where he continued to speak out against the crimes of the U.S. government as he did in his visit to Washington in 1879.

Film Clip Description

Chief Joseph’s account is read here by Q’Orianka Kilcher on February 1, 2007, at All Saints Church, Pasadena, Calif. The excerpt is from Voices of a People’s History of the United States edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.

Many more video clips can be found at the Voices of a People’s History website and in the film The People Speak.

The post Chief Joseph: “Account of His Trip to Washington, D.C.” appeared first on Zinn Education Project.