Voices of a People's History of the United States

Front Cover
Seven Stories Press, Jan 4, 2011 - History - 567 pages
Here in their own words are Frederick Douglass, George Jackson, Chief Joseph, Martin Luther King Jr., Plough Jogger, Sacco and Vanzetti, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Mark Twain, and Malcolm X, to name just a few of the hundreds of voices that appear in Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.
Paralleling the twenty-four chapters of Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Voices of a People’s History is the long-awaited companion volume to the national bestseller. For Voices, Zinn and Arnove have selected testimonies to living history—speeches, letters, poems, songs—left by the people who make history happen but who usually are left out of history books—women, workers, nonwhites. Zinn has written short introductions to the texts, which range in length from letters or poems of less than a page to entire speeches and essays that run several pages. Voices of a People’s History is a symphony of our nation’s original voices, rich in ideas and actions, the embodiment of the power of civil disobedience and dissent wherein lies our nation’s true spirit of defiance and resilience.
 

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
19
COLUMBUS AND LAS CASAS
29
Eduardo Galeano Memory of Fire 1982
45
THE FIRST SLAVES
51
Benjamin Banneker Letter to Thomas Jefferson August 19 1791
58
Proclamation of the New Hampshire Legislature
63
A True Narrative of the Rise Progresse and Cessation of the Late
66
Account of the New York Tenant Riots July 14 1766
76
Genora Johnson Dollinger
345
Woody Guthrie This Land Is Your Land February 1940
353
Yuri Kochiyama Then Came the War 1991
359
United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report
367
Admiral Gene Larocque Speaks to Studs Terkel About
373
Peter Seeger Thou Shall Not Sing 1989
382
The Final Letter from Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to Their Children
388
THE BLACK UPSURGE AGAINST
389

HALF A REVOLUTION
93
Publius James Madison Federalist No 10 November 23 1787
107
Susan B Anthony Addresses Judge Ward Hunt in The United States
115
Harriet Hanson Robinson Characteristics of the Early
121
of America vs Susan B Anthony June 19 1873
130
Two Documents on the Cherokee Removal 1829 and 1830
136
John G Burnett The Cherokee Removal Through
142
Black Elk The End of the Dream 1932
149
Miguel Barragan Dispatch on Texas Colonists October 31 1835
156
Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience 1849
164
Two Letters from Slaves to Their Former Masters 1844 to 1860
180
Frederick Douglass The Meaning of July Fourth
183
Martin Delanys Advice to Former Slaves July 23 1865
191
CIVIL WAR AND CLASS CONFLICT
197
Joel Tyler Headley The Great Riots of New York 1873
204
J A Dacus Annals of the Great Strikes in the United States 1877
211
August Spies Address of August Spies October 7 1886
219
Two Speeches by Mary Elizabeth Lease circa 1890
226
Ida B WellsBarnett Lynch Law 1893
232
THE EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE
239
Samuel Clemens Comments on the Moro Massacre
248
SOCIALISTS AND WOBBLIES
257
W E B Du Bois The Souls of Black Folk 1903
264
A Menace to Liberty 1908
270
Woody Guthrie Ludlow Massacre 1946
278
Helen Keller Strike Against War January 5 1916
284
Why the IWW Is Not Patriotic to the United States 1918
291
Randolph Bourne The State 1918
298
John Dos Passos The Body of an American 1932
304
FROM THE JAZZ AGE TO
311
Mary Licht I Remember the Scottsboro Defense
320
Billie Holiday Strange Fruit 1937
327
Sylvia Woods You Have to Fight for Freedom 1973
336
John Lewis Original Text of Speech to Be Delivered at
398
Testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer August 22 1964
404
Alice Walker Once 1968
410
Martin Luther King Jr Where Do We Go from Here?
417
Martin Luther King Jr Beyond Vietnam April 4 1967
423
Bob Dylan Masters of War 1963
429
Larry Colburn They Were Butchering People 2003
437
Tim OBrien The Man I Killed 1990
444
A Memoir of Vietnam and
450
Wamsutta Frank B James Suppressed Speech on
453
Martin Duberman Stonewall 1993
457
Abbey Lincoln Who Will Revere the Black Woman?
466
LOSING CONTROL IN THE 1970S
481
Angela Davis Political Prisoners Prisons
494
What the Deleted Was It?
507
Testimony of Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz on Vieques Puerto Rico
521
Vito Russo Why We Fight 1988
534
Public Enemy Fight the Power 1990
540
Eqbal Ahmad Roots of the Gulf Crisis November 17 1990
546
June Jordan Speaks Out Against the 1991 Gulf
553
Mike Davis In L A Burning All Illusions June 1 1992
561
CHALLENGING BILL CLINTON
569
Winona LaDuke Acceptance Speech for the Green Partys
576
The Battle in Seattle An Eyewitness
583
Elizabeth Betita Martínez Be Down with the Brown 1998
589
BUSH II AND THE WAR ON TERROR
599
Monami Maulik Organizing in Our Communities
606
Amy Goodman Independent Media in a Time of War 2003
612
Patti Smith People Have the Power 1988
622
CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS
639
INDEX
651
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
663
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

The visionary historical work of professor and activist HOWARD ZINN (1922–2010) is widely considered one of the most important and influential of our era. After his experience as a bombardier in World War II, Zinn became convinced that there could no longer be such a thing as a “just war,” because the vast majority of victims in modern warfare are, increasingly, innocent civilians. In his books, including A People’s History of the United States, its companion volume Voices of a People’s History of the United States, and countless other titles, Zinn affirms the power of the people to influence the course of events.

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