Excerpts
Posted on February 19, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
In November 1970, after my arrest along with others who had engaged in a Boston protest at an army base to block soldiers from being sent to Vietnam, I flew to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to take part in a debate with the philosopher Charles Frankel on civil disobedience. I was supposed to appear …
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
In light of the death of the President George H. W. Bush on November 30, 2018, we share some of Howard Zinn’s writing about the Bush administration.
Updated on August 24, 2018 by Howard Zinn Website
Abraham A. Callahan has shared his paper “Two Rebel Historians: Thucydides, Howard Zinn and Telling Truth for Social Good ” with HowardZinn.org. Written as an honors thesis in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin, Callahan compares the history writing of Thucydides and Howard Zinn. Callahan argues, In order for historians …
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
The University of Georgia Press has published Howard Zinn’s Southern Diary: Sit-Ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women’s Student Activism by Robert Cohen with a foreword by Alice Walker. The book includes diary entries from Howard Zinn’s time teaching at Spelman College (1956-1963). Historian Robert Cohen offers a substantial overview of Zinn’s role at Spelman and other archival documents.
Updated on August 31, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
By Howard Zinn, excerpted from The Zinn Reader I was one of the speakers at historic Faneuil Hall in Boston (though named after an early slave trader, it was the scene of many meetings of anti-slavery groups before the Civil War) in 1991, when the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts organized a celebration of the …
Updated on August 30, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Today (December 7) is the birthday of Howard Zinn’s longtime friend Noam Chomsky. In celebration, we share this interview with David Barsamian (DB) of Alternative Radio about how they met. Excerpted from The Future of History, Zinn discusses Chomsky’s popularity, “His message has been so powerful and so outrageously true and so backed up by …
Updated on November 25, 2016 by Howard Zinn Website
On Nov. 25, 1986, 60 people—including Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman—were arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct stemming from a sit-in to block CIA campus recruiting at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, an act of protest of the CIA’s role in Central America. Howard Zinn testified as an expert on civil disobedience. Lawyers Tom Lesser and Leonard Weinglass …
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Nov. 22 marks the birthday of Staughton Lynd, longtime friend of Howard Zinn. They both taught at Spelman College and can be described as long-distance runners for justice.
“I have admired [Lynd] enormously ever since I first met him,” Zinn wrote shortly before his death, because he is an “exemplar of strength and gentleness in the quest for a better world.” Read more about Lynd in this tribute by Andy Piascik.
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
By Howard Zinn
This essay (written for Z Magazine in 1990, and reprinted in my book Failure to Quit, was inspired (if you are willing to call this an inspired piece) by my students of the Eighties. I was teaching a spring and fall lecture course with four hundred students in each course (and yet with lots of discussion). I looked hard, listened closely, but did not find the apathy, the conservatism, the disregard for the plight of others, that everybody (right and left) was reporting about “the me generation.”
_____________________________________
I can understand pessimism, but I don’t believe in it. It’s not simply a matter of faith, but of historical evidence. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give hope, because for hope we don’t need certainty, only possibility.
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
We revisit Howard Zinn’s essay, “If History Is to Be Creative,” published in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, a collection of essays from The Progressive magazine. The following excerpt is a reflection on the role and responsibility of the engaged historian, and is an inspiration for us all to continue the fight for justice. Zinn …
Excerpts
“The Problem Is Civil Obedience”: Chapter 20 from Voices of a People’s History
Posted on February 19, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
In November 1970, after my arrest along with others who had engaged in a Boston protest at an army base to block soldiers from being sent to Vietnam, I flew to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to take part in a debate with the philosopher Charles Frankel on civil disobedience. I was supposed to appear …
Category: Excerpts Tags: Civil Disobedience
“Bush seemed determined to go to war”: The Legacy of President George H. W. Bush
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
In light of the death of the President George H. W. Bush on November 30, 2018, we share some of Howard Zinn’s writing about the Bush administration.
Category: Excerpts, In the News, News
Two Rebel Historians: Thucydides, Howard Zinn and Telling Truth for Social Good
Updated on August 24, 2018 by Howard Zinn Website
Abraham A. Callahan has shared his paper “Two Rebel Historians: Thucydides, Howard Zinn and Telling Truth for Social Good ” with HowardZinn.org. Written as an honors thesis in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin, Callahan compares the history writing of Thucydides and Howard Zinn. Callahan argues, In order for historians …
Category: About Howard Zinn, Excerpts, News
Howard Zinn’s Southern Diary: Excerpts
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
The University of Georgia Press has published Howard Zinn’s Southern Diary: Sit-Ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women’s Student Activism by Robert Cohen with a foreword by Alice Walker. The book includes diary entries from Howard Zinn’s time teaching at Spelman College (1956-1963). Historian Robert Cohen offers a substantial overview of Zinn’s role at Spelman and other archival documents.
Category: About Howard Zinn, Excerpts, News
Insisting on the Rights of Everyone Everywhere
Updated on August 31, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
By Howard Zinn, excerpted from The Zinn Reader I was one of the speakers at historic Faneuil Hall in Boston (though named after an early slave trader, it was the scene of many meetings of anti-slavery groups before the Civil War) in 1991, when the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts organized a celebration of the …
Category: Excerpts Tags: Activist, Excerpts
When Zinn and Chomsky Met
Updated on August 30, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Today (December 7) is the birthday of Howard Zinn’s longtime friend Noam Chomsky. In celebration, we share this interview with David Barsamian (DB) of Alternative Radio about how they met. Excerpted from The Future of History, Zinn discusses Chomsky’s popularity, “His message has been so powerful and so outrageously true and so backed up by …
Category: Articles & Interviews, Excerpts, Interviews With Howard Zinn Tags: Noam Chomsky
Zinn Testifies at the Trial of CIA Protesters
Updated on November 25, 2016 by Howard Zinn Website
On Nov. 25, 1986, 60 people—including Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman—were arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct stemming from a sit-in to block CIA campus recruiting at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, an act of protest of the CIA’s role in Central America. Howard Zinn testified as an expert on civil disobedience. Lawyers Tom Lesser and Leonard Weinglass …
Category: Articles about Howard Zinn, Excerpts Tags: Civil Disobedience, Testimony
Staughton Lynd — “Long Distance Runner for Justice”
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Nov. 22 marks the birthday of Staughton Lynd, longtime friend of Howard Zinn. They both taught at Spelman College and can be described as long-distance runners for justice.
“I have admired [Lynd] enormously ever since I first met him,” Zinn wrote shortly before his death, because he is an “exemplar of strength and gentleness in the quest for a better world.” Read more about Lynd in this tribute by Andy Piascik.
Category: Excerpts, News Tags: Spelman College, Staughton Lynd
Failure to Quit
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
By Howard Zinn
This essay (written for Z Magazine in 1990, and reprinted in my book Failure to Quit, was inspired (if you are willing to call this an inspired piece) by my students of the Eighties. I was teaching a spring and fall lecture course with four hundred students in each course (and yet with lots of discussion). I looked hard, listened closely, but did not find the apathy, the conservatism, the disregard for the plight of others, that everybody (right and left) was reporting about “the me generation.”
_____________________________________
I can understand pessimism, but I don’t believe in it. It’s not simply a matter of faith, but of historical evidence. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give hope, because for hope we don’t need certainty, only possibility.
Category: Excerpts, News Tags: Civil Disobedience, Possibility, Student Activism
If History Is to Be Creative
Updated on August 27, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
We revisit Howard Zinn’s essay, “If History Is to Be Creative,” published in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, a collection of essays from The Progressive magazine. The following excerpt is a reflection on the role and responsibility of the engaged historian, and is an inspiration for us all to continue the fight for justice. Zinn …
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn, Excerpts, News Tags: Possibility, The Progressive