Whitney Young Jr. (July 31, 1921 – March 11, 1971) was a civil rights leader and head of the National Urban League. In the documentary The Powerbroker (2013), Howard Zinn recalls working with Young on desegregation efforts in the South:… Read More

Originally broadcast on “What’s Happening Mr. Silver?” on WGBH Boston, Howard Zinn lauds Eartha Kitt and Dr. Benjamin Spock for their public resistance and calls on everyone to actively resist and protest social injustice.   What’s Happening Mr…. Read More

Howard Zinn: A People’s History of the United States, Part I, a documentary by French filmmakers Daniel Mermet and Olivier Azam of Les Mutins de Pangee, is available to rent or purchase. The 1:30 hour film features interviews… Read More

In October 2003, months after the United States launched its brutal, criminal war on the people of Iraq, historian Howard Zinn sat down with actor Woody Harrelson for a provocative, humorous, wide ranging conversation. Produced for Deep Dish… Read More

The filmed stage performance of Howard Zinn’s play Emma is now available for rent or purchase. Filmed live in 2005 at the Byrdcliffe Theatre in Woodstock, New York, with Zinn in attendance, the play draws on Goldman’s influential autobiography, speeches, and political writings to trace her emergence as one of the foremost radical intellectuals and dissident activists in America in the early part of the 20th century.

Film Clip: Lovejoy’s Nuclear War by Green Mountain Post Films Includes interviews with community members and their thoughts about Sam Lovejoy’s action of toppling the nuclear power plant’s weather tower, Lovejoy about his trial strategy, Dr. John Gofman… Read More

On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado. An estimated two dozen people were killed, including young children. Known as the Ludlow Massacre, Howard… Read More

Howard Zinn, author of the People’s History of the United States, reviews the history of the abolitionists and the Vietnam War to encourage a new generation of resistance against the Iraq occupation and the war at home. Democracy… Read More

The documentary film, #ReGENERATION ( Anonymous Content and Engine 7 Films, 2012), explores the galvanizing forces behind the Occupy Movement and the state of social activism in our society. The film takes an uncompromising look at the challenges… Read More

Bill Moyers Journal • December 11, 2009
“I have confidence in the future. You know why? You have to be patient. Farmworkers were at one point in as helpless a position as the labor movement is today. But as Cesar Chavez said, we learned that you have to organize. And it takes time, it takes patience, it takes persistence.”

TV Without Borders (TVXS) • May 30, 2009
Recorded in Greece, Zinn talks about Obama and the presidency.

Legendary historian Howard Zinn joins us to talk about war, torture and the teaching of history. Zinn says had Obama heeded the lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he wouldn’t be escalating U.S. attacks abroad and increasing… Read More

Speech give by Howard Zinn in Madison, Wisconsin, May 2, 2009 Transcript Matt Rothschild: For all his fame he’s more humble, or as I told him once, he fakes it better than anyone I know. So, let’s hear… Read More

In memory of Howard Zinn and in appreciation of his life’s work, the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation shared excerpts from an interview they conducted with Howard Zinn. In this interview, Zinn shares… Read More

In 2008, Howard Zinn have a keynote address at the National Conference for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference. He offers clear examples of how history teachers can help students think outside of the box. This is an excellent film… Read More

Interview by BigThink • 7/5/08
What is the state of democracy in America?
HOWARD ZINN: We don’t have a lot of democracy in America today. We have these formal institutions. We have representative government and we have a Bill of Rights… Sure, we are more democratic than an absolutist and totalitarian state, but we in the United States are still quite a long way from democracy and certainly a long way from economic democracy.

Interview by BigThink • July 5, 2008
What do you want to be remembered for?

HOWARD ZINN: If I want to be remembered for anything, it’s for introducing a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality, for getting more and more people to think that way. Also, for getting more people to realize that the power which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns, that the power ultimately rests in people themselves and that they can use it. At certain points in history, they have used it.

Interview by BigThink • 5/8/08
How do you blend anarchism, socialism and communism?
HOWARD ZINN: I think there are elements in all three that are useful.

Is that a practical way of thinking?
HOWARD ZINN: It’s certainly not practical in the sense of something that’s immediately achievable. But I think it’s very important to hold as a goal.

Watch video at BigThink: Howard Zinn’s Personal Philosophy

Interview by BigThink • 5/8/08
Who do you endorse for President [in the 2008 U.S. election]?
HOWARD ZINN: Between Clinton and Obama, well both of them have promised to end the [Iraq] war, but I must say their proposals for bringing the troops out of Iraq are rather halfhearted and they talk about keeping troops there, or Barack Obama says, “Let’s take troops out of Iraq, send troops to Afghanistan.” Neither of them has shaken what Barack Obama rightly called the mindset that led to the Iraq war. The mindset is a mindset which sees war and military intervention as a solution. Neither of them has shaken that.

Interview by BigThink • 5/8/08
Topic: Race in America

HOWARD ZINN: There are more openings in media and business and the professions for a certain number of Black people. But I speak about 10 or 20 percent. For the vast majority of Black people, their lives are still constricted by poverty and racism. The civil rights movement accomplished a good deal by beginning to remove some of the important social barriers. What it did not remove was the barrier of class, the barrier of economic injustice.

Martin Luther King recognized this. That’s why toward the end of his life he began working for economic rights for Black people.