It’s time has come, the idea that war must be abolished. … When [Albert] Einstein said that in 1932, he was attending a conference in Geneva which was called a disarmament conference. Any time you see the words “disarmament conference,” be suspicious.…
By Howard Zinn, from The Zinn Reader
Writing a column to appear in the July 4, 1975, issue of the Boston Globe, I wanted to break away from the traditional celebrations of Independence Day, in which the spirit of that document, with its call for rebellion and revolution, was most often missing. The column appeared with the title “The Brooklyn Bridge and the Spirit of the Fourth.”
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 change been concentrated in so short a span of years.”
For Indigenous Peoples' 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 taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history."
Published in The Progressive • July 2, 2006
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.
Is not nationalism – that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder – one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
Published by ZCommunications • July 4, 2000
In this year 2000, I cannot comment more meaningfully on the Fourth of July than Frederick Douglass did when he was invited in 1852 to give an Independence Day address. He could not help thinking about the irony of the promise of the Declaration of Independence, of equality, life, liberty made by slaveowners, and how slavery was made legitimate in the writing of the Constitution after a victory for "freedom" over England. And his invitation to speak came just two years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, committing the national government to return fugitives to slavery with all the force of the law.
So it is fitting, at a time when police are exonerated in the killing of unarmed black men, when the electric chair and the gas chamber are used most often against people of color, that we refrain from celebration and instead listen to Douglass' sobering words…
Published by the Boston Globe • June 2, 1976
Memorial Day will be celebrated as usual, by high-speed collisions of automobiles and bodies strewn on highways and the sound of ambulance sirens throughout the land.
It will also be celebrated by the display of flags, the sound of bugles and drums, by parades and speeches and unthinking applause.
It will be celebrated by giant corporations, which make guns, bombs, fighter planes, aircraft carriers and an endless assortment of military junk and which await the $100 billion in contracts to be approved soon by Congress and the President.
There was a young woman in New Hampshire who refused to allow her husband, killed in Vietnam, to be given a military burial. She rejected the hollow ceremony ordered by those who sent him and 50,000 others to their deaths. Her courage should be cherished on Memorial Day.
Holidays
Howard Zinn: “War must be abolished”
Updated on March 4, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
PART 1
Excerpt:
It’s time has come, the idea that war must be abolished. … When [Albert] Einstein said that in 1932, he was attending a conference in Geneva which was called a disarmament conference. Any time you see the words “disarmament conference,” be suspicious.…
Category: Audio & Video, Video With Howard Zinn Tags: George W. Bush, Holidays, Iraq, War
The Spirit of Rebellion
Updated on October 10, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Writing a column to appear in the July 4, 1975, issue of the Boston Globe, I wanted to break away from the traditional celebrations of Independence Day, in which the spirit of that document, with its call for rebellion and revolution, was most often missing. The column appeared with the title “The Brooklyn Bridge and the Spirit of the Fourth.”
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn, News Tags: Activism, American Revolution, Civil Disobedience, Essays and Speeches, Heroes, Holidays, Mainstream Media
Indian Resistance and Thanksgiving Declarations
Updated on October 10, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: News Tags: Excerpts, Holidays, Native Americans
Columbus and the Lens of History
Updated on October 10, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn, News Tags: Columbus, Excerpts, Holidays
Put Away the Flags
Updated on June 25, 2019 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn Tags: American Empire, Essays and Speeches, Holidays, The Progressive, War
A Fourth of July Commentary
Updated on July 2, 2016 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn Tags: Democracy, Essays and Speeches, Holidays, Racism, ZCommunications
Whom Will We Honor Memorial Day?
Updated on August 31, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn Tags: American Empire, Common Dreams, Essays and Speeches, Holidays, Mainstream Media, War