Why was yip harburg relieved when the stock market crashed

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Voices of a People’s History of the United States

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ALSO BY HOWARD ZINN

Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches 1963—2009 (2012) Howard Zinn on Race (2011) The Bomb (2010) The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy, second

edition (2009) A Young People’s History of the United States, adapted by Rebecca

Stefoff (2008, 2009) Readings from Voices of a People’s History of the United States

(audio CD), edited with Anthony Arnove (2007) The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency (2007) A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (2007) The People Speak (2006) Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics with David

Barsamian (2006) Artists in Times of War (2003) Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice (2003) You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our

Times, second edition (2002) Terrorism and War, with Anthony Arnove (2002) Emma (2002, 2013) A People’s History of the United States: 1492—Present, updated ed.

(2001) Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit

of Labor’s Last Century, with Dana Frank and Robin D. G. Kelley (2001)

Howard Zinn on War (2001, 2011) Howard Zinn on History (2001, 2011) La otra historia de los Estados Unidos (2001) Marx in Soho: A Play on History (1999, 2013) The Future of History: Interviews with David Barsamian (1999)

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Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian (1993, 2002, 2013)

The Politics of History, 2d ed. (1990) Justice: Eyewitness Accounts (1977, 2002, 2013) Postwar America: 1945–1971 (1973, 2002, 2013) Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies of Law and Order

(1968, 2002, 2013) Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal (1967, 2002, 2013) SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964, 2002, 2013) The Southern Mystique (1964, 2002, 2013) LaGuardia in Congress (1959)

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Voices of a People’s History of the United

States 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Howard Zinn Anthony Arnove

SEVEN STORIES PRESS New York • Oakland

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Copyright © 2004, 2009 by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove © 2014 by Howard Zinn Revocable Trust and Anthony Arnove

For permissions information see pages 675–684.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, digital, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Seven Stories Press 140 Watts Street

New York, NY 10013 www.sevenstories.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION Zinn, Howard, 1922–

Voices of A people’s history of the United States / Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove. -- 10th anniv. ed.

p. cm. ISBN 978-1-60980-592-0 (pbk.) 1. United States--History--Sources. 2. United States--Biography. I. Arnove,

Anthony, 1969– II. Zinn, Howard, 1922– People’s history of the United States. III. Title. E173.Z564 2009 973--dc22 2009037882

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If there is no struggle there is no progress…. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.

—FREDERICK DOUGLASS1

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TO ROSLYN ZINN (1922–2008)

AND TO THE REBEL VOICES OF THE COMING GENERATION

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Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: COLUMBUS AND LAS CASAS The Diario of Christopher Columbus (October 11–15, 1492) Bartolomé de Las Casas, Two Readings on the Legacy of Columbus

(1542 and 1550) Bartolomé de Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief

Account (1542) Bartolomé de Las Casas, In Defense of the Indians (1550)

Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire (1982)

CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST SLAVES Three Documents on Slave Revolts (1720 to 1793)

Anonymous Letter to Mr. Boone in London (June 24, 1720) Letter from Petersburg, Virginia (May 17, 1792) Secret Keeper Richmond (Unknown) to Secret Keeper Norfolk

(Unknown) (1793) Four Petitions Against Slavery (1773 to 1777)

“Felix” (Unknown) Slave Petition for Freedom (January 6, 1773) Peter Bestes and Other Slaves Petition for Freedom (April 20,

1773) “Petition of a Grate Number of Blackes” to Thomas Gage (May

25, 1774) “Petition of a Great Number of Negroes” to the Massachusetts

House of Representatives (January 13, 1777) Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson (August 19, 1791)

CHAPTER 3: SERVITUDE AND REBELLION Richard Frethorne on Indentured Servitude (March 20–April 3, 1623) A True Narrative of the Rise, Progresse, and Cessation of the Late

Rebellion in Virginia, Most Humbly and Impartially Reported by

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His Majestyes Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the Affaires of the Said Colony (1677)

Proclamation of the New Hampshire Legislature on the Mast Tree Riot (1734)

Letter Written by William Shirley to the Lords of Trade about the Knowles Riot (December 1, 1747)

Gottlieb Mittelberger, Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754 (1754)

Account of the New York Tenant Riots (July 14, 1766)

CHAPTER 4: PREPARING THE REVOLUTION Thomas Hutchinson Recounts the Reaction to the Stamp Act in

Boston (1765) Samuel Drowne's Testimony on the Boston Massacre (March 16,

1770) George Hewes Recalls the Boston Tea Party (1834) New York Mechanics Declaration of Independence (May 29, 1776) Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

CHAPTER 5: HALF A REVOLUTION Joseph Clarke's Letter about the Rebellion in Springfield (August 30,

1774) Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures,

Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier (1830) Samuel Dewees Recounts the Suppression of Insubordination in the

Continental Army after the Mutinies of 1781 (1844) Henry Knox, Letter to George Washington (October 23, 1786) “Publius” (James Madison), Federalist No. 10 (November 23, 1787)

CHAPTER 6: THE EARLY WOMEN'S MOVEMENT Maria Stewart, “An Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall,

Boston” (February 27, 1833) Angelina Grimké Weld's Speech at Pennsylvania Hall (May 17,

1838) Harriet Hanson Robinson, “Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls”

(1898)

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S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments and

Resolutions,” Seneca Falls Convention (July 19, 1848) Sojourner Truth, “Ain't I a Woman?” (1851) Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell (May 1,

1855) Susan B. Anthony Addresses Judge Ward Hunt in The United States

of America v. Susan B. Anthony (June 19, 1873)

CHAPTER 7: INDIAN REMOVAL Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811–12) Two Documents on the Cherokee Removal (1829 and 1830)

Cherokee Nation, “Memorial of the Cherokee Indians” (December 1829)

Lewis Ross et al., Address of the Committee and Council of the Cherokee Nation, in General Council Convened, to the People of the United States (July 17, 1830)

Black Hawk's Surrender Speech (1832) John G. Burnett, “The Cherokee Removal Through the Eyes of a

Private Soldier” (December 11, 1890) Two Statements by Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé (1877 and 1879)

Chief Joseph's Surrender (October 5, 1877) Chief Joseph Recounts His Trip to Washington, D.C. (1879)

Black Elk, “The End of the Dream” (1932)

CHAPTER 8: THE WAR ON MEXICO The Diary of Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock (June 30, 1845–March

26, 1846) Miguel Barragan, Dispatch on Texas Colonists (October 31, 1835) Juan Soto, Desertion Handbill (June 6, 1847) Frederick Douglass, Address to the New England Convention (May

31, 1849) North Star Editorial, “The War with Mexico” (January 21, 1848) Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)

CHAPTER 9: SLAVERY AND DEFIANCE

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David Walker's Appeal (1830) Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by

Herself (1861) James Norcom's Runaway Slave Newspaper Advertisement for

Harriet Jacobs (June 30, 1835) James R. Bradley, Letter to Lydia Maria Child (June 3, 1834) Reverend Theodore Parker, Speech of Theodore Parker at the

Faneuil Hall Meeting (May 26, 1854) Two Letters from Slaves to Their Former Masters (1844 to 1860) Henry Bibb, Letter to William Gatewood (March 23, 1844) Jermain Wesley Loguen, Letter to Sarah Logue (March 28, 1860) Frederick Douglass, “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” (July

5, 1852) John Brown, “John Brown's Last Speech” (November 2, 1859) Osborne P. Anderson, A Voice from Harper's Ferry (1861) Martin Delany's Advice to Former Slaves (July 23, 1865) Henry McNeal Turner, “On the Eligibility of Colored Members to

Seats in the Georgia Legislature” (September 3, 1868)

CHAPTER 10: CIVIL WAR AND CLASS CONFLICT An Eyewitness Account of the Flour Riot in New York (February

1837) Hinton Rowan Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South (1857) “Mechanic” (Unknown), “Voting by Classes” (October 13, 1863) Joel Tyler Headley, The Great Riots of New York (1873) Four Documents on Disaffection in the South During the Civil War

(1864 to 1865) Report on a Bread Riot in Savannah, Georgia (April 1864) “Exempt” (Unknown), “To Go, Or Not to Go” (June 28, 1864) O.G.G. (Unknown), Letter to the Editor (February 17, 1865) Columbus Sun, “The Class That Suffer” (February 17, 1865)

J. A. Dacus, Annals of the Great Strikes in the United States (1877)

CHAPTER 11: STRIKERS AND POPULISTS IN THE GILDED AGE Henry George, “The Crime of Poverty” (April 1, 1885) August Spies, “Address of August Spies” (October 7, 1886)

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Anonymous, “Red-Handed Murder: Negroes Wantonly Killed at Thibodaux, La.” (November 26, 1887)

Reverend Ernest Lyon et al., Open Letter from the New Orleans Mass Meeting (August 22, 1888)

Two Speeches by Mary Elizabeth Lease (circa 1890) “Wall Street Owns the Country” (circa 1890) Speech to the Women's Christian Temperance Union (1890)

The Omaha Platform of the People's Party of America (1892) Reverend J. L. Moore on the Colored Farmers' Alliance (March 7,

1891) Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “Lynch Law” (1893) Statement from the Pullman Strikers (June 15, 1894) Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (1888)

CHAPTER 12: THE EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE Calixto Garcia's Letter to General William R. Shafter (July 17, 1898) Three Documents on African-American Opposition to Empire (1898

to 1899) Lewis H. Douglass on Black Opposition to McKinley (November

17, 1899) Missionary Department of the Atlanta, Georgia, A.M.E. Church,

“The Negro Should Not Enter the Army” (May 1, 1899) I. D. Barnett et al., Open Letter to President McKinley by

Colored People of Massachusetts (October 3, 1899) Samuel Clemens, “Comments on the Moro Massacre” (March 12,

1906) Smedley D. Butler, War Is a Racket (1935)

CHAPTER 13: SOCIALISTS AND WOBBLIES Mother Jones, “Agitation: The Greatest Factor for Progress” (March

24, 1903) Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906) W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Emma Goldman, “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty” (1908) “Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of Lawrence” (1912) … Arturo Giovannitti's Address to the Jury (November 23, 1912)

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Woody Guthrie, “Ludlow Massacre” (1946) Julia May Courtney, “Remember Ludlow!” (May 1914) Joe Hill, “My Last Will” (November 18, 1915)

CHAPTER 14: PROTESTING THE FIRST WORLD WAR Helen Keller, “Strike Against War” (January 5, 1916) John Reed, “Whose War?” (April 1917) “Why the IWW Is Not Patriotic to the United States” (1918) Emma Goldman, Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and

Alexander Berkman (July 9, 1917) Two Antiwar Speeches by Eugene Debs (1918)

“The Canton, Ohio, Speech” (June 16, 1918) Statement to the Court (September 18, 1918)

Randolph Bourne, “The State” (1918) e. e. cummings, “i sing of Olaf glad and big” (1931) John Dos Passos, “The Body of an American” (1932) Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1939)

CHAPTER 15: FROM THE JAZZ AGE TO THE UPRISINGS OF THE 1930S F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Echoes of the Jazz Age” (1931) Yip Harburg, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (1932) Paul Y. Anderson, “Tear-Gas, Bayonets, and Votes” (August 17,

1932) Mary Licht, “I Remember the Scottsboro Defense” (February 15,

1997) Ned Cobb (“Nate Shaw”), All God's Dangers (1969) Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1937) Two Poems by Langston Hughes (1934 and 1940)

“Ballad of Roosevelt” (1934) “Ballad of the Landlord” (1940)

Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Speech to the Court (April 9, 1927) Vicky Starr (“Stella Nowicki”), “Back of the Yards” (1973) Sylvia Woods, “You Have to Fight for Freedom” (1973) Rose Chernin on Organizing the Unemployed in the Bronx in the

1930s (1949)

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Genora (Johnson) Dollinger, Striking Flint: Genora (Johnson) Dollinger Remembers the 1936–37 GM Sit-Down Strike (February 1995)

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939) Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land” (February 1940)

CHAPTER 16: WORLD WAR II AND MCCARTHYISM Paul Fussell, “'Precision Bombing Will Win the War'” (1989) Yuri Kochiyama, “Then Came the War” (1991) Yamaoka Michiko, “Eight Hundred Meters from the Hypocenter”

(1992) United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (Pacific

War) (July 1, 1946) Admiral Gene Larocque Speaks to Studs Terkel About “The Good

War” (1985) Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) Paul Robeson's Unread Statement before the House Committee on

Un-American Activities (June 12, 1956) Peter Seeger, “Thou Shall Not Sing” (1989) I. F. Stone, “But It's Not Just Joe McCarthy” (March 15, 1954) The Final Letter from Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to Their Children

(June 19, 1953)

CHAPTER 17: THE BLACK UPSURGE AGAINST RACIAL SEGREGATION Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (1941) Langston Hughes, “Montage of a Dream Deferred” (1951) Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968) John Lewis, Original Text of Speech to Be Delivered at the Lincoln

Memorial (August 28, 1963) Malcolm X, “Message to the Grass Roots” (November 10, 1963) Martha Honey, Letter from Mississippi Freedom Summer (August 9,

1964) Testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer (August 22, 1964) Testimony of Rita L. Schwerner (1964) Alice Walker, “Once” (1968)

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Sandra A. West, “Riot!—A Negro Resident's Story” (July 24, 1967) Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go from Here?” (August 16,

1967)

CHAPTER 18: VIETNAM AND BEYOND: THE HISTORIC RESISTANCE Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, McComb, Mississippi,

Petition Against the War in Vietnam (July 28, 1965) Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam” (April 4, 1967) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Position Paper on

Vietnam (January 6, 1966) Bob Dylan, “Masters of War” (1963) Muhammad Ali Speaks Out Against the Vietnam War (1966) Jonathan Schell, The Village of Ben Suc (1967) Larry Colburn, “They Were Butchering People” (2003) Haywood T. “The Kid” Kirkland, from Bloods: An Oral History of the

Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984) Loung Ung, “People Just Disappeared and You Didn't Say Anything”

(2003) Tim O'Brien, “The Man I Killed” (1990) Maria Herrera-Sobek, Two Poems on Vietnam (1999) Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon

Papers (2003)

CHAPTER 19: WOMEN, GAYS, AND OTHER VOICES OF RESISTANCE Allen Ginsberg, “America” (January 17, 1956) Martin Duberman, Stonewall (1993) Wamsutta (Frank B.) James, Suppressed Speech on the 350th

Anniversary of the Pilgrim's Landing at Plymouth Rock (September 10, 1970)

Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (1977) Abbey Lincoln, “Who Will Revere the Black Woman?” (September

1966) Susan Brownmiller, “Abortion Is a Woman's Right” (1999)

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Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard), “Women in Prison: How We Are” (April 1978)

Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Women, Power, and Revolution” (October 16, 1998)

CHAPTER 20: LOSING CONTROL IN THE 1970S Howard Zinn, “The Problem Is Civil Obedience” (November 1970) George Jackson, Soledad Brother (1970) Bob Dylan, “George Jackson” (1971) Angela Davis, “Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation”

(1970) Two Voices of the Attica Uprising (1971 and 2000)

Elliott James (“L. D.”) Barkley (September 9, 1971) Interview with Frank “Big Black” Smith (2000)

Leonard Peltier on the Trail of Broken Treaties Protest (1999) Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect

to Intelligence Activities, Covert Action in Chile 1963–1973 (December 18, 1975)

Noam Chomsky, “COINTELPRO: What the (Deleted) Was It?” (March 12, 1978)

CHAPTER 21: THE CARTER–REAGAN–BUSH CONSENSUS Marian Wright Edelman, Commencement Address at Milton

Academy (June 10, 1983) César Chávez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of California

(November 9, 1984) Testimony of Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz on Vieques, Puerto Rico

(October 2, 1979) Local P-9 Strikers and Supporters on the 1985–1986 Meatpacking

Strike against the Hormel Company in Austin, Minnesota (1991) Douglas A. Fraser, Resignation Letter to the Labor–Management

Group (July 19, 1978) Vito Russo, “Why We Fight” (1988) Abbie Hoffman, “Closing Argument” (April 15, 1987) Public Enemy, “Fight the Power” (1990)

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CHAPTER 22: PANAMA, THE 1991 GULF WAR, AND THE WAR AT HOME Alex Molnar, “If My Marine Son Is Killed …” (August 23, 1990) Eqbal Ahmad, “Roots of the Gulf Crisis” (November 17, 1990) June Jordan Speaks Out Against the 1991 Gulf War (February 21,

1991) Yolanda Huet-Vaughn, Statement Refusing to Serve in the 1991 Gulf

War (January 9, 1991) Interview with Civilian Worker at the Río Hato Military Base in

Panama City (February 23, 1990) Mike Davis, “In L.A., Burning All Illusions” (June 1, 1992) Mumia Abu-Jamal, All Things Censored (2001)

CHAPTER 23: CHALLENGING BILL CLINTON Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) Lorell Patterson on the “War Zone” Strikes in Decatur, Illinois (June

1995) Winona LaDuke, Acceptance Speech for the Green Party's

Nomination for Vice President of the United States of America (August 29, 1996)

Two Open Letters of Protest to the Clinton Administration Alice Walker, Letter to President Bill Clinton (March 13, 1996) Adrienne Rich, Letter to Jane Alexander Refusing the National

Medal for the Arts (July 3, 1997) Rania Masri, “How Many More Must Die?” (September 17, 2000) Roni Krouzman, “WTO: The Battle in Seattle: An Eyewitness

Account” (December 6, 1999) Anita Cameron, “And the Steps Came Tumbling Down—ADAPT's

Battle with the HBA” (2000) Elizabeth (“Betita”) Martínez, “'Be Down with the Brown!'” (1998) Walter Mosley, Workin’ on the Chain Gang (2000) Julia Butterfly Hill, “Surviving the Storm: Lessons from Nature”

(2001)

CHAPTER 24: BUSH II, OBAMA, AND THE “WAR ON TERROR”

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Michael Moore, “The Presidency—Just Another Perk” (November 14, 2000)

Orlando Rodriguez and Phyllis Rodriguez, “Not In Our Son's Name” (September 15, 2001)

Rita Lasar, “To Avoid Another September 11, U.S. Must Join the World” (September 5, 2002)

Monami Maulik, “Organizing in Our Communities Post–September 11th” (2001)

International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 705, “Resolution Against the War” (October 18, 2002)

Rachel Corrie, Letter from Palestine (February 7, 2003) Danny Glover, Speech During the World Day of Protest Against the

War (February 15, 2003) Amy Goodman, “Independent Media in a Time of War” (2003) Tim Predmore, “How Many More Must Die?” (August 24, 2003) Maritza Castillo et al., Open Letter to Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)

Michael G. Jones (September 12, 2003) Kurt Vonnegut, “Cold Turkey” (May 31, 2004) Glenn Greenwald, Speech to the Socialism 2013 Conference (June

27, 2013) Chelsea Manning, “'Sometimes You Have to Pay a Heavy Price to

Live in a Free Society'” (August 21, 2013)

CHAPTER 25: RISING RESISTANCE IN THE 21ST CENTURY Camilo Mejía, “'I Pledge My Allegiance to the Poor and Oppressed'”

(July 3, 2005) Cindy Sheehan, “'It's Time the Antiwar Choir Started Singing'”

(August 5, 2005) Kevin Tillman, “After Pat's Birthday” (October 19, 2006) Evann Orleck-Jetter, Statement on Marriage Equality (March 18,

2009) Gustavo Madrigal-Piña, “Undocumented and Unafraid” (August 22,

2011) Roberto Meneses Marquez, “A Day Laborer” (April 30, 2013) Naomi Klein, “Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the

World Now” (October 6, 2011) Phillip Agnew, “#OurMarch” (August 28, 2013)

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Kirstin Roberts, “We Stood Up to the Bullies” (October 9, 2012) Amber Kudla, “518-455-4767” (June 23, 2013) Jesse Hagopian, “After We Scrapped the MAP” (January 30, 2014) Michelle Farber, “We All Have to Be Brave” (May 14, 2014)

EPILOGUE: Patti Smith, “People Have the Power” (1988) NOTES CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHORS ABOUT SEVEN STORIES PRESS OTHER HOWARD ZINN BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM SEVEN STORIES PRESS

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank, first and foremost, Dan Simon, our editor and friend, who not only envisioned this book and made it possible, but who served as the strongest advocate the readers of this book could ever have.

Two skilled and insightful researchers provided invaluable help and deserve special appreciation: Joey Fox, who helped this project in its daunting initial stages, and Jessie Kindig, who assisted us in the final stages. Without either of them, this book would not now be in your hands.

Brenda Coughlin labored long hours in editorial and research assistance, but more significant, kept us from losing sight of the importance of this project when it seemed it might never be completed.

Thanks to Hugh Van Dusen of Harper Collins, who has so ably published and sustained A People’s History of the United States for more than twenty years.

Elaine Bernard of the Harvard Trade Union Program generously facilitated the initial meetings and research that began Voices.

Ray Raphael, Elizabeth Martinez, and David Williams provided invaluable editorial suggestions, recommendations, and guidance.

George Mürer brilliantly handled the enormous task of securing permissions, for which we are profoundly indebted, and Paul Abruzzo undertook some of the early preliminary research for Voices in its first incarnation.

Therese Phillips, Dao X. Tran, Peter Lamphere, Laura Durkay, Monique Jeanne Dols, David Thurston, Chris Peterson, Rosio Gallo, Story Lee Matkin-Rawn, and Meredith Kolodner all contributed

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importantly to our research efforts, logging long hours with old manuscripts and microfilms, as well as lap tops.

Jon Gilbert deserves special appreciation for his work on the laborious production of this book.

Shea Dean offered her excellent editing skills when the manuscript was completed.

Andrew H. Lee, New York University history librarian, provided critical assistance to our research. For research assistance, we would also like to thank: Ryan Nuckel, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University; David Kessler and Amelia Hellam, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley; The University of Washington Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies in Seattle; Stephen Kiesow, Seattle Public Library; the California Digital Library; the Online Archive of California; Sherri F. Pawson and David G. Horvath, University of Louisville Libraries; Tom Hardin, Louisville Free Public Library; Ann Billesbach, Nebraska State Historical Society; Brian DeShazor, Pacifica Radio Archives; Joseph Ditta, The New York Historical Society; Candace Falk, Emma Goldman Papers Project, University of California at Berkeley; New York Public Library; Ann Bristow, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; William LeFevre, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Toni M. Carter, the Virginia Historical Society; Harry Elkins Widener Library and all the Harvard Libraries; the Boston Public Library; the New York Historical Society; the Chicago Historical Society; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and all of the other libraries and librarians whose work contributed to our research.

For help with specific readings and permissions, we would like to thank: David Barsamian of Alternative Radio; Joan Miura; Johanna Lawrenson; Julie Diamond; Yolanda Huet-Vaughn; Wini Breines; Alan Maass of Socialist Worker; Paul D’Amato of International Socialist Review; Bill Roberts of Haymarket Books; Susan Rosenthal; Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!; Denis Moynihan, Outreach Director, Democracy Now!; Bob Seay, WOMR Radio; Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates; Roberto Barreto; Ismael Guadalupe Ortiz; Marian Wright Edelman; Patti Smith; Robert Bills; Michael Smith, Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives; Judy Hicks,

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Librarian, Peoria Journal Star; Sheila Lee, Louisiana Newspaper Project; Nadya Cherup, Detroit Public Library; Michael F. Knight, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Manuscript Division; Ernest J. Emrich, the Joseph L. Rauh Jr. Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division; Lin Fredericksen, Kansas State Historical Society Reference; and Wade Lee, University of Toledo Libraries; Martha Honey; Martin Duberman; Joe Allen; Winona LaDuke; Orlando and Phyllis Rodriguez; Anita Cameron and Colorado ADAPT; Mike Davis; Paul Robeson, Jr.; and Cindy and Craig Corrie.

We would also like to thank: Ana Bautista, Nita Levison, Carole Sue Blemker, Patty Mitchell, James P. Danky, Woody Holton, Robert Gross, Lawrence Goodwyn, Robert Arnove, Ike Arnove, Suzanne Ceresko, Meredith Blake, John Sayles, Maggie Renzi, Rudy Acuna, Jonathan H. Rees, Peter Nabokov, Hans Koning, Paul Riggs, Marlene Martin, Ahmed Shawki, Sharon Smith, Bill Roberts, Julie Fain, Herbert Aptheker, Philip Foner, Eric Foner, Gerda Lerner, Jeremy Brecher, Manning Marable, Richard Hofstadter, Michael Wallace, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Bob Wing, Bob Rabin and the Comite Pro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques, Frank Abe, Jim Zwick, Lynne Hollander, Jim Crutchfield, the Hudson Mohawk Independent Media Center, Ruth Baldwin of Nation Books, Maria Herrera-Sobek, Barbara Seaman, Odile Cisneros, Amy Hoffman, Marc Favreau, Andy Coopersmith, Norma Castillo, Maritza Castillo, Lou Plummer, Military Families Speak Out, and Monami Maulik.

Gayle Olson-Raymer wrote the excellent teacher’s guide to this book, with Ray Raphael, Ron Perry, Jack Bareilles, Mike Benbow, Tasha Boettcher-Haller, Robin Pickering, Jennifer Rosebrook, Colby Smart, and Eric Vollmers.

Thanks also to Tara Parmiter, for her efforts promoting the book to historians since its early conception.

We are deeply indebted to all of the people who wrote the texts we drew upon, transcribed them, recorded them, published them, and sustained them for all these years—especially those whose names are not recorded.

And, finally, we are especially grateful to Roz and Brenda. Without your love, we’d be nowhere at all.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Howard Zinn passed away January 27, 2010, an incalculable loss to those of us lucky enough to know him and to millions more he inspired and whose struggles he supported. For this third edition, on the tenth anniversary of the initial publication of our book, I have added new voices. My selections were guided by my conversations with Howard since the second edition of Voices of a People’s History of the United States was published in 2009, and my sense of the movements since 2010 that would have most excited him.

For their help with this edition, I would like to thank Brenda Coughlin, Dan Simon, Jon Gilbert, Jesse Ruddock, Ben Rowen, Silvia Stramenga, Andrew Epstein, Rob Urbinati, Rick Balkin, Myla Kabat-Zinn, Dave Zirin, Michael Ratner, David E. Coombs, Alan Maass, Socialist Worker, Jennifer Robinson, Trevor FitzGibbon, Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman, Eric Ruder, Caitlin Sheehan, James Plank, Jesse Hagopian, Amber Kudla, Gustavo Madrigal- Pina, Roberto Meneses Marquez, John Tarleton, The Indypendent, Gustavo Mejias Morales, Kirstin Roberts, the Chicago Teachers Union, Jesse Sharkey, Michelle Farber, Arun Gupta, Naomi Klein, Occupy Wall Street, Avi Lewis, Jackie Joiner, Phillip Agnew, and Dream Defenders.

—Anthony Arnove July 14, 2014

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Introduction

Readers of my book A People’s History of the United States1 almost always point to the wealth of quoted material in it—the words of fugitive slaves, Native Americans, farmers and factory workers, dissenters and dissidents of all kinds. These readers are struck, I must reluctantly admit, more by the words of the people I quote than by my own running commentary on the history of the nation.

I can’t say I blame them. Any historian would have difficulty matching the eloquence of the Native American leader Powhatan, pleading with the white settler in the year 1607: “Why will you take by force what you may have quietly by love?”

Or the black scientist Benjamin Banneker, writing to Thomas Jefferson: “I apprehend you will readily embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevails with respect to us, and that your Sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are that one universal Father hath given being to us all, and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also without partiality afforded us all the Same Sensations and [endowed] us all with the same faculties.”

Or Sarah Grimké, a white Southern woman and abolitionist, writing: “I ask no favors for my sex…. All I ask of our brethren, is that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.”

Or Henry David Thoreau, protesting the Mexican War, writing on civil disobedience: “A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay,

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against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.”

Or Jermain Wesley Loguen, escaped slave, speaking in Syracuse on the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850: “I received my freedom from Heaven and with it came the command to defend my title to it…. I don’t respect this law—I don’t fear it—I won’t obey it! It outlaws me, and I outlaw it.”

Or the populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease of Kansas: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street.”

Or Emma Goldman, speaking to the jury at her trial for opposing World War I: “Verily poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world? … [A] democracy conceived in the military servitude of the masses, in their economic enslavement, and nurtured in their tears and blood, is not democracy at all.”

Or Mississippi sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer, testifying in 1964 about the dangers to blacks who tried to register to vote: “[T]he plantation owner came, and said, ‘Fannie Lou…. If you don’t go down and withdraw your registration, you will have to leave … because we are not ready for that in Mississippi.’ And I addressed him and told him and said, ‘I didn’t try to register for you. I tried to register for myself.’”