Table Of ContentA People’s History
for the Classroom
Bill Bigelow
The Zinn Education Project
A collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change
A People’s History for the Classroom
by Bill Bigelow
A Rethinking Schools Publication
Rethinking Schools,Ltd.,is a nonprofit educational publisher of books,
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© 2008 Rethinking Schools,Ltd.
First edition
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Book Design:Kate Hawley
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Front cover photo:Lawrence Strike,1912,© Brown Brothers,Sterling PA
Back cover photo: Anti-lynching protest, NYC, 1917, © Underwood &
Underwood,NY.Library ofCongress.
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ISBN:978-0-942961-39-3
Table of Contents
Preface v
Introduction:A People’s History,
A People’s Pedagogy 1
Why Students Should Study History:
An Interview with Howard Zinn 8
Discovering Columbus 15
The People vs.Columbus,et al. 21
U.S.-Mexico War Tea Party 29
“We Take Nothing by Conquest,Thank God”
by Howard Zinn 39
Unsung Heroes
by Howard Zinn 51
Teaching About Unsung Heroes 54
Lawrence,1912:The Singing Strike 63
Rethinking the Teaching of the Vietnam War 81
“A School Year Like No Other”—
Eyes on the Prize: “Fighting Back:1957-1962” 89
Whose “Terrorism”? 97
About the Authors 109
iii
Preface
INLATE2007,AFORMERBOSTONUNIVERSITY teachers,while supplies last.A dedicated webpage,
student watched You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving www.ZinnEdProject.org,provides additional rec-
Train,the film about the life ofhistorian,professor, ommended resources and ongoing updates about
and activist Howard Zinn. He recalled attending the project and its impact.The film and book are
Professor Zinn’s remarkable lectures at BU in the also commercially available, and additional
1970s, and marveled at how Zinn’s “people’s his- copies of the teaching guide can be downloaded
tory” was so much more alive and accurate than for free from the website or ordered from either
the traditional history he’d received in high school. Rethinking Schools or Teaching for Change.
Now,after a successful career in technology,he A note about this teaching guide.As explained
wanted to contribute to bringing Zinn’s work to a in the introduction,the activities included here are
new generation of students. So he contacted designed to offer curriculum ideas to complement
Howard Zinn who put him in touch with Rethink- Howard Zinn’s history. Some of the articles and
ing Schools and Teaching for Change, both non- lessons—most ofwhich first appeared in Rethink-
profit organizations, each with over 20 years of ing Schools magazine or books—are pegged
experience in providing social justice resources directly to Zinn’s work; others deal with themes
and professional development for pre-K-12 class- and episodes that Zinn addresses. This guide is a
room teachers and teacher educators. sampler.Many more “people’s history”curriculum
“I’d prefer to remain anonymous,” he told books are available from Rethinking Schools and
us. “This is not about me; it’s about getting Teaching for Change.
Howard Zinn’s work into the hands of as many Some 30 years after his exposure to Howard
teachers as possible.” Zinn’s approach to history, the former Boston
So with the generous support of this anony- University student who triggered this project
mous donor, Rethinking Schools and Teaching demonstrates that classroom experience can
for Change have partnered to produce and offer have a lifelong impact. We believe that through
a unique educational packet,which includes the taking a more engaging and more honest look at
DVD You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, the past, we can help equip students with the
about Howard Zinn’s life;Howard Zinn’s classic analytical tools to make sense of—and
text,A People’s History ofthe United States;and a improve—the world today.
teaching guide, assembled especially for this
project. We are promoting and distributing the —Rethinking Schools and
packets nationally to middle and high school Teaching for Change
v
Introduction:
A People’s History,
A People’s Pedagogy
THE LAST TIME HOWARD ZINN CAME TO people matter—that history ought to focus on
speak in Portland, Ore., where I’ve taught high those who too often receive only token attention
school history since 1978, hundreds of people (workers, women, people of color), and also on
packed the auditorium to hear him.Those unable how people’s actions,individually and collectively,
to find seats stood throughout the hall;others sat shaped our society. And it’s a people’s history in
on the floor or crowded onto the stage.Hundreds that it’s a perspective on the past that is usable
more were turned away, unable to squeeze in. A today,that can instruct and inspire and caution as
colleague at my high school said,only half in jest, we try to make the world a better place.
that it was one of the saddest days of his life,not Contrast Zinn’s approach with a traditional
being able to get in to hear Howard Zinn. textbook history.As anyone who has ever cracked
Something unusual is going on when a histo- a history textbook can affirm,they’re boring.The
rian draws crowds like a rock star. prose reads like words and ideas have first been
Unusual, but not surprising. Zinn’s people’s run through a blender.Passionless,story-poor,the
history is passionate, probing, and partisan. Zinn books feign Objectivity.There is a lot of“us,”and
begins from the premise that the lives of ordinary “we,”and “our,”as ifthe texts are trying to dissolve
p
si
n I
di
or
J
1
race,class,and gender realities into the melting pot students to the long antiwar and anti-imperialist
of “the nation.”Indeed, the books have titles like traditions in our country’s history? And with so
The Rise ofthe American Nation,embracing a cur- much conversation about “protecting our borders,”
ricular manifest destiny where all history led glori- isn’t it biased not to explore where those borders
ously (or by about page 700,tediously) to Us. came from in the first place?
Zinn’s writing presents no such illusions. In In the first chapter of A People’s History of the
fact, the title of his autobiography (and the film United States, Zinn notes how so much history-
distributed by the Zinn Education Project) insists: telling concentrates on those at the top—the pres-
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. Societies idents and diplomats, the generals and
are dynamic, conflict-ridden, with power played industrialists.It’s a winner’s history,and implicitly
out in every aspect of life. Historians cannot tells students:Pay attention to the victors and dis-
remain outside or “above” these struggles, Zinn regard the rest.Zinn flips the script,as the kids say.
argues.None ofus can.Our lives,our occupations, He writes that,“I prefer to try to tell the story ofthe
our consumer choices—and,yes,how we tell his- discovery of America from the viewpoint of the
tory—all take sides, and help move the world in Arawaks,of the Constitution from the standpoint
one direction or another. of the slaves,of Andrew Jackson as
“Anyone reading history seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil
should understand from the start War as seen by the New York Irish,
that there is no such thing as of the Mexican War as seen by the
impartial history,”Zinn writes in a deserting soldiers ofScott’s army,of
book of essays, Declarations of the rise of industrialism as seen by
Independence. “All written history the young women in the Lowell tex-
is partial in two senses.It is partial tile mills, of the Spanish-American
in that it is only a tiny part ofwhat war as seen by the Cubans,the con-
really happened. That is a limita- quest of the Philippines as seen by
tion that can never be overcome. the black soldiers on Luzon, the
And it is partial in that it inevitably Gilded Age as seen by southern
takes sides, by what it includes or farmers,the First World War as seen
omits,what it emphasizes or deem- by socialists,the Second World War
phasizes. It may do this openly or as seen by pacifists,the New Deal as
deceptively,consciously or subconsciously.” seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American
The textbooks most ofus have read as students empire as seen by peons in Latin America.”
or have been assigned to teach throughout our This from-the-grassroots, people’s history is
careers do not acknowledge their biases. As Zinn grounded in Zinn’s own experiences: “Before I
suggests, the authors may even be unaware of became a professional historian,I had grown up in
them. The most recent history textbook I was the dirt and dankness ofNew York tenements,had
assigned in Portland,American Odyssey (Glencoe) been knocked unconscious by a policeman while
describes the U.S.War with Mexico in two bland holding a banner in a demonstration,had worked
paragraphs, out of its 1,010 pages (see p. 49). It for three years in a shipyard,and had participated
never mentions widespread U.S.opposition to the in the violence ofwar.”
war at the time.It was during this war that Henry But Zinn’s approach to history is not simply a
David Thoreau went to jail and coined the term personal preference based on his own experiences.
“civil disobedience,”in defense ofhis refusal to pay When we look at history from the standpoint of
taxes to support U.S. aggression against Mexico. the workers and not just the owners, the soldiers
Today,as the United States wages two wars in for- and not just the generals,the invaded and not just
eign lands and engages in military actions in many the invaders,we can begin to see society more fully,
more,isn’t a textbook biased when it fails to alert more accurately.So often,history books describe a
2 A PEOPLE’S HISTORY FOR THE CLASSROOM
