The film provides great background information for teachers on the life and activism of Howard Zinn in the civil rights, anti-war, and free speech movements. Clips could be used in the classroom to introduce specific historic events.

Narrated by Matt Damon with music by Pearl Jam, Woody Guthrie & Billy Bragg. Closed captioned.

Produced by First Run Features.

“With narration taken entirely from Zinn’s own writing, read by actor Matt Damon, filmmakers Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller skillfully capture the spirit of Zinn’s life work.” — Link TV

“Thoughtful, exciting, moving.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Finally, a documentary about one of America’s most important academics.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Trailer

Watch the full documentary online.

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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

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

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 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

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

Table of Contents

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”

The post A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Complete with handouts and case-studies, this curriculum introduces students to key groups, events, and issues such as the Homestead Strike, the Union Maids, the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, “scientific management,” and the impact of racism on labor.

“This is a workbook in the best sense. Its approach is original, exhilarating, and, most important, practical. That most neglected of all subjects in U.S. schools — the visions and lives of working people — is faced head-on in this book. A must for all people who earn their daily bread.” —Studs Terkel

“Most school teachers are drowned in paper, but here is one book I want to recommend to them. It is a way of getting American teenagers not just interested, but excited and passionate about their history — modern American labor history.” —Pete Seeger

“Everywhere I go I recommend this unique book. You want to learn more about labor history than just dates and famous people? Read and use this book. At long last, a book as exciting as labor’s struggle itself.” —Julia Reichert, filmmaker

“. . . one of the best social studies curricula ever produced.” —Fred Glass, California Federation of Teachers

ISBN: 9780853457534 | Monthly Review Press

The Power In Our Hands — Available for Download

Opening

• Acknowledgments, Notes to the Teacher, and Introduction

Unit I: Basic Understandings

• Organic Goodie Simulation
• Who Makes History?
• What Rights Do We Have?

Unit II: Changes in the Workplace/”Scientific Management”

• Paper Airplane Simulation
• Free to Think, Talk, Listen, or Sing
• Modern Times
• “Taylorizing” Burgers: A Fantasy

Unit III: Defeats, Victories, Challenges

• The Homestead Strike
• Birth of a Rank-and-File Organizer
• Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike

Unit IV: Our Own Recent Past

• It’s a Mystery — White Workers Against Black Workers
• Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?
• 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike
• Union Maids

Unit V: Continuing Struggle

• Shutdown! — Confronting Plant Closures
• Labor Songs

The post The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

World War II, like so many other events in history, presents the teacher with an overwhelming range of topics. The rise of Nazism and fascism in Europe, the Holocaust, the military history and diplomacy of the war, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific, the Nuremberg Trials, the dropping of atomic bombs, the beginnings of the Cold War — there is no way to cover all these events in a typical month-long unit.

One event that invariably gets neglected is the war-time internment of Japanese Americans from the West Coast of the United States. The reasons are numerous. But I suspect the main reason is that serious investigation of the internment would contradict the traditional presentation of the U.S. role in the war — how U.S. ingenuity and power turned back Hitler, liberated the concentration camps, halted Japanese expansionism, and generally fought the good fight. Such an interpretation does not leave much room for aberrations, particularly one as anti-democratic as the Japanese internment.

More resources on the incarceration (internment) of Japanese Americans during WWII.

This lesson was published by Rethinking Schools in Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice (Volume 2). For more lessons like “A Lesson on the Japanese American Internment,” order Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice (Volume 2) with a rich collection of from-the-classroom articles, curriculum ideas, lesson plans, poetry, and resources. See Table of Contents.

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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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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.

The post Barefoot Gen: The Bombing of Hiroshima As Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Boy appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

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.

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.

The post Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Harrison envisioned a socialism that had special appeal to African-Americans, and he affirmed the duty of socialists to oppose race-based oppression. Despite high praise from his contemporaries, Harrison’s legacy has largely been neglected.

This reader redresses the imbalance; Harrison’s essays, editorials, reviews, letters, and diary entries offer a profound, and often unique, analysis of issues, events and individuals of early twentieth-century America. His writings also provide critical insights and counterpoints to the thinking of W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey.

The reader is organized thematically to highlight Harrison’s contributions to the debates on race, class, culture, and politics of his time. The writings span Harrison’s career and the evolution of his thought, and include extensive political writings, editorials, meditations, reviews of theater and poetry, and deeply evocative social commentary. [Publisher description.]

“With publication of this volume it will be possible to trace the evolution of Harrison’s thought for the first time ever. The appearance of Harrison’s writings will most certainly not only fill a gap in our understanding of black radical and nationalist writings around the World War I period and beyond, but will also, I suspect, change the way in which we tend to look at black thought generally in this period.” —Ernest Allen, Jr., W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies, UMass at Amherst

ISBN: 9780819564702 | Wesleyan University Press

 Slideshow Presentation and Talk

“Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism”

By Jeffrey B. Perry at the Dudley Public Library, Roxbury, Massachusetts, February 15, 2014

For additional material by and about Hubert Harrison see Jeffrey B. Perry’s website.

The post A Hubert Harrison Reader appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Sharecroppers listen to speaker on September 12, 1937, in St. Francis, Arkansas. Source: Louise Boyle, Kheel Center.

The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU) was a federation of tenant farmers formed in Arkansas in 1934 with the aim of reforming the crop-sharing system of sharecropping and tenant farming. The STFU was integrated, women played a critical role in its organization and administration, and fundamentalist church rituals and regional folkways were basic to the union’s operation. [Continue reading the history of the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.]

This teaching activity on the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union examines efforts by African American and white workers to overcome deep divisions and suspicions of racial antagonism. Students are faced with a “What would you do?” assignment that helps them grasp many of the difficulties in achieving some degree of racial unity. At the same time, they realize the importance of confronting and overcoming racist attitudes. The interview with C.P. Ellis by Studs Terkel is a remarkable example of one individual’s awakening to these issues.

Reading the “Sharecroppers’ Voice” during an outdoor Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union meeting in 1937. Source: Louise Boyle, Kheel Center.

Setting for the Student Activity

It is the middle of the Great Depression and farmers, especially those who rent land or are “sharecroppers” — people who use others’ land in exchange for part of their crop — are hard hit. For one thing, cotton prices have gone steadily down. The response of the federal government has made matters worse. In 1933 the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was passed. The AAA was intended to boost cotton prices by paying farmers to take land out of production. According to the law, no tenant farmers or sharecroppers were supposed to be evicted from their farms. But that’s not how it has worked. Between 1933 and 1934, an estimated 900,000 people — African American and white — have been thrown off the land by plantation owners taking advantage of the AAA.

Goals and Objectives

1. Students will explore the difficulties of farm labor organizing in the 1930s.

2. Students will understand how racism divides potential allies.

3. Students will reflect on ways to overcome racism while trying to change oppressive conditions.

“Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union: Black and White Unite?” is one of the 16 lessons in The Power In Our Hands.

Find related lessons and other resources below.

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Evocative primary source documents are especially important to our discussions of World War I. While any analysis of the war “to make the world safe for democracy” demonstrates the downward spiral into militaristic violence that ushered in a century of unparalleled destruction, most traditional discussions are devoid of antiwar voices and actions. Yet without this perspective, students leave the subject of World War I thinking that the vast majority of Americans willingly fought in the war and/or unquestioningly supported the war effort. As historians, we know that such was not the case.

In Chapter 14 of Voices of  a People’s History of the United States, students are exposed to first-hand accounts of how Americans opposed the war and the trend toward militarism. These voices not only illustrate the widespread nature of the antiwar movement, they also highlight the federal government’s calculated reaction to the movement and the way in which the war influenced art and literature among the generation who survived the war.

From Library of Congress.

Our students will learn of the dynamic nature that comprised the antiwar appeal to the imperialistic foundation of the war, and they will come away with an understanding of how the views of these antiwar activists were, in many cases, systematically suppressed. Finally, these documents of resistance better equip our students with the tools they will need to become, critical, responsive and thorough practitioners of historical thought.

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

Text Excerpts and Readings

Helen Keller with a soldier.

Excerpts from the January 5, 1916 speech by Helen Keller at Carnegie Hall, from Chapter 14 of Voices of a People’s History:

“The future of the world rests in the hands of America. The future of America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 working men and women and their children. We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists . . .

“Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippine Islands. Incidentally, this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines . . .

“Every modern war has had its root in exploitation. The Civil War was fought to decide whether slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea . . .

“Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter of peace and the butcheries of war. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.”

Read full speech online.

The Truth About Helen Keller

The Truth About Helen Keller is a critical analysis of the representation of Helen Keller in children’s literature and textbooks.

10 Readings for Students

Chapter 14 of Voices of a People’s History, “Protesting the First World War” offers 10 readings for students with perspectives that are often missing from textbooks.

• Helen Keller, “Strike Against War” (January 5, 1916)
• John Reed, “Whose War?” (April 1917)
• “Why the IWW Is Not Patriotic to the United States” (1918)
• Emma Goldman, Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and
• Alexander Berkman (July 9, 1917)
• Two Antiwar Speeches by Eugene Debs (1918)
  • “The Canton, Ohio Speech” (June 16, 1918)
  • Statement to the Court (September 18, 1918)
• Randolph Bourne, “The State” (1918)
• e.e. cummings, “i sing of Olaf glad and big” (1931)
• John Dos Passos, “The Body of an American” (1932)
• Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1939)

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