In an experiment with nearly 700 students from nine Chicago-area schools, Matthew Nelsen (a PhD candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University) gave out readings on the abolitionist movement, the National Farmworkers Association, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Half of the readings were from the corporate textbook The American Pageant and the other half from A People’s History of the United States. Afterwards, when Nelsen asked students to report on their willingness to participate in political activities (voting, campaigning, or demonstrations), Black and Latino youth reported a greater willingness to participate when they read passages from A People’s History.
Howard Zinn was the faculty adviser for the Boston University (BU) student newspaper, bu exposure. In 1977-78, the administration of John Silber demanded to review the contents of the paper before it was published and act as a censor. Zinn refused.
“Howard’s calm, quiet insistence on doing what was right and taking a stand are lessons that have stayed with me for a lifetime.”
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."
By Howard Zinn • 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.
Interviewed by Perspective • March 1999
"My aim is to kind of provoke people to get active, people who've got some awareness of what's going on in the world, who have enough awareness to come to one of my talks. They have a little bit of awareness, and my hope is to increase that awareness, and turn it into action.… I use history to expose information which has been concealed, and which is troubling. History has a very—you might say gloomy—message when you look at what has happened in history. And then on the other hand to counter that with the stories of social movements that have done very inspiring and marvelous things."
Student Activism
A People’s History Inspires Students’ Political Activism
Posted: June 25, 2020 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: In the News, News Tags: A People's History of the United States, Activism, Student Activism
Howard Zinn and the bu exposure
Posted: October 3, 2017 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles about Howard Zinn, News Tags: Activism, Boston University, Student Activism
“Howard Zinn, Our Favorite Teacher” Series — Suzanne Baker
Posted: September 13, 2016 by Howard Zinn Website
Category: News, Tributes Tags: Activism, Boston University, Student Activism, Zinn Education Project
Failure to Quit
Posted: September 13, 2016 by Howard Zinn Website
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."
Category: Excerpts, News Tags: Civil Disobedience, Possibility, Student Activism
When Respectability Was No Longer Respectable, and Virtue Required Acting Out, Not Leaning In
Posted: April 6, 2015 by Howard Zinn Website
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.
Category: Articles & Interviews, Articles by Howard Zinn, News Tags: Activism, In the South, Spelman College, Student Activism, The Nation
Zinn and the Art of Liberal Persuasion
Posted: March 1, 1999 by Howard Zinn Website
"My aim is to kind of provoke people to get active, people who've got some awareness of what's going on in the world, who have enough awareness to come to one of my talks. They have a little bit of awareness, and my hope is to increase that awareness, and turn it into action.… I use history to expose information which has been concealed, and which is troubling. History has a very—you might say gloomy—message when you look at what has happened in history. And then on the other hand to counter that with the stories of social movements that have done very inspiring and marvelous things."
Category: Articles & Interviews, Interviews With Howard Zinn Tags: Possibility, Student Activism