The second annual Howard Zinn Book Fair (HZBF) will be held on Sunday, November 15, 2015, at City College of San Francisco, Mission Campus. Visit www.howardzinnbookfair.com for updates, schedule, and more information.

In New York, a small army of policemen, laid off and angry, have been blocking the Brooklyn Bridge, and garbage workers are letting the refuse pile up in the streets. In Boston, some young people on Mission Hill are illegally occupying an abandoned house to protest the demolition of a neighborhood. And elderly people, on the edge of survival, are fighting Boston Edison’s attempt to raise the price of electricity.

So it looks like a good Fourth of July, with the spirit of rebellion proper to the Declaration of Independence.

Published on June 2, 1976 in the Boston Globe and republished in The Zinn Reader with this brief introduction: Memorial Day will be celebrated … by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.

The Nation • August 6, 1960 and republished March 23, 2015
One afternoon some weeks ago, with the dogwood on the Spelman College campus newly bloomed and the grass close-cropped and fragrant, an attractive, tawny-skinned girl crossed the lawn to her dormitory to put a notice on the bulletin board. It read: Young Ladies Who Can Picket Please Sign Below.

The notice revealed, in its own quaint language, that within the dramatic revolt of Negro college students in the South today another phenomenon has been developing. This is the upsurge of the young, educated Negro woman against the generations-old advice of her elders: be nice, be well-mannered and ladylike, don’t speak loudly, and don’t get into trouble. On the campus of the nation’s leading college for Negro young women—pious, sedate, encrusted with the traditions of gentility and moderation—these exhortations, for the first time, are being firmly rejected.

PEN New England selected Ferguson activists and bloggers Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson to receive the 2015 Howard Zinn Freedom to Write Award. Formerly named the “Thomas Paine Award,” the Freedom to Write Award was re-named in honor of Howard Zinn. PEN… Read More

This year, as the Pentagon prepares to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we revisit this essay by Howard Zinn written in 1998, the 30th anniversary year of when he traveled with the Reverend Daniel Berrigan… Read More

On this 5th anniversary of the passing of Howard Zinn, we encourage you to read Zinn’s biography, articles, and interviews. The site was rebuilt in August of 2014 and provides a treasure trove of his work. If you have additional interviews, photos, or archival materials by Howard Zinn that can be published online, email contact@howardzinn.org.

Read more from the Winter 2015 Newsletter.

In the 1960s, Howard Zinn, along with Ella Baker, served as advisers to SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. On this 50th anniversary year of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, we revisit Zinn’s first-hand account from Selma’s Freedom Day in 1963. “The idea was to bring hundreds of people to register to vote, hoping that their numbers would decrease fear. And there was much to fear,” Zinn writes.

The following excerpt is from Chapter 5 of Zinn’s autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train and is followed by related resources about Selma’s voting rights campaign, Freedom Day, and SNCC.

December 30 is the anniversary of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo being indicted in 1971 for releasing the Pentagon Papers. The papers were part of a 7,000-page, top secret history of the U.S. political and military involvement in… Read More

For Thanksgiving, we highlight Native American resistance that caught the nation’s attention in the 1960s and 70s. As Howard Zinn wrote in Chapter 19 of A People’s History of the United States, “Never in American history had more movements for… Read More

The 10th anniversary edition of Voices of a People’s History of the United States is now available. Voices of a People’s History is a companion to Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, with first person… Read More

For Veterans Day, we highlight this article, “Dissent at the War Memorial,” written by Howard Zinn for The Progressive in 2004. Asked to speak on a panel called, “War Stories,” Zinn said, “I don’t want to honor military… Read More

Voices of a People’s History of the United States, The New School for Public Engagement, and Seven Stories Press, in association with Haymarket Books, present a special evening of music and readings to celebrate the tenth-anniversary edition of Voices of… Read More

The first-ever Howard Zinn Book Fair will be held on November 15th, 2014 at the Mission High School in San Francisco. Professor Robin D.G. Kelley is one of the featured keynote speakers. Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented… Read More

For Columbus Day, we feature an excerpt from Chapter One of A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn describes why he tells the story of Columbus’s arrival “from the viewpoint of the Arawaks” and “the inevitable… Read More

With Banned Book Week (Sept. 21-28) in full swing, we call attention to the recent—sometimes successful—attempts to ban Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. In 2012, the Tucson Unified School District decided to abolish the highly-successful… 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

Bob Weick enters his 10th season performing Howard Zinn’s play, Marx in Soho, with performances scheduled for Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In Howard Zinn’s brilliant, timely play, Karl Marx launches into a passionate, funny and moving defense of… Read More

In August 2014, a new version of HowardZinn.org launched to provide greater online access to articles, interviews, and other works by and about Howard Zinn. The website also offers a comprehensive list of books by Howard Zinn and… Read More

On April 24, 2014, a daylong symposium was held at New York University (NYU) to celebrate the donation of Zinn’s personal papers to NYU’s Tamiment Library by his children, Myla Kabat-Zinn and Jeff Zinn. Included in the donation are Zinn’s personal correspondences, school and military records, FBI files, datebooks, biographical articles, and interviews.

Panels held throughout the day highlighted different aspects of Zinn’s life and work, and included the following participants…