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TEACHING WITH Voices of a People’s History of the United States BY HOWARD ZINN AND ANTHONY ARNOVE TEACHING WITH Voices of a People’s History of the United States BY HOWARD ZINN AND ANTHONY ARNOVE Gayle Olson-Raymer Humboldt State University With selected chapters written by Humboldt County ap teachers: Jack Bareilles (McKinleyville High School), Natalia Boettcher (South Fork High School), Mike Benbow (Fortuna High School), Ron Perry (Eureka High School), Robin Pickering, Jennifer Rosebrook (Arcata High School), Colby Smart (Ferndale High School), and Robert Standish (South Fork High School) SEVEN STORIES PRESS New York • Toronto • London • Melbourne Copyright © 2005 by Gayle Olson-Raymer 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 ISBN-13: 978-1-58322-683-4 / ISBN-10: 1-58322-683-4 College professors may order examination copies of all Seven Stories Press titles for a free six-month trial period. To order visit www.sevenstories.com/textbook, or fax on school letterhead to 212-226-1411. College professors who have adopted Voices of a People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove as a course textbook are authorized to duplicate portions of this guide for their students. Teaching with Voices is also avail- able in its entirety or chapter-by-chapter as a free downloadable pdf file at www.sevenstories.com/textbook/. Design by Jon Gilbert Printed in the U.S.A. To Delores McBroome, Rodney Sievers, and Jack Bareilles, my fellow travelers on the K–16 journey and to the teachers in the Teaching American History programs in Humboldt County, my colleagues who made the journey worth the effort. Contents Acknowledgments . 9 Introduction . 11 Chapter 1: Columbus and Las Casas . 20 Chapter 2: The First Slaves . 30 Chapter 3: Servitude and Rebellion . 40 Chapter 4: Preparing the Revolution . 50 Chapter 5: Half a Revolution . 60 Chapter 6: The Early Women’s Movement . 71 Chapter 7: Indian Removal . 83 Chapter 8: The War on Mexico . 96 Chapter 9: Slavery and Defiance . 105 Chapter 10: Civil War and Class Conflict . 117 Chapter 11: Strikers and Populists in the Gilded Age . 128 Chapter 12: The Expansion of the Empire . 141 Chapter 13: Socialists and Wobblies . 151 Chapter 14: Protesting the First World War . 163 by Colby Smart Chapter 15: From the Jazz Age to the Uprisings of the 1930s . 174 Chapter 16: World War II and McCarthyism . 189 Chapter 17: The Black Upsurge Against Racial Segregation . 203 by Natalia Boettcher Chapter 18: Vietnam and Beyond: The Historic Resistance . 215 by Mike Benbow and Robin Pickering ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ contents Chapter 19: Women, Gays, and Other Voices of Resistance . 227 by Jack Bareilles Chapter 20: Losing Control in the 1970s . 239 by Jennifer Rosebrook Chapter 21: The Carter–Reagan–Bush Consensus . 250 by Ron Perry Chapter 22: Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and the War at Home . 261 by Robert Standish Chapter 23: Challenging Bill Clinton . 271 Chapter 24: Bush II and the “War on Terror” . 283 Acknowledgments This teaching guide materialized under the intellectual guidance and exceptional editorial suggestions of Ray Raphael, my friend and fellow historian. Chapters 1–11 were greatly improved by the creative touches of Bill Bigelow, my much respected colleague in the K–16 world. The spirit of resistance was nurtured by the tutorial assistance of Anthony Arnove, the co-author of Voices. Without the assistance of my colleagues—the eight Humboldt County high- school educators who contributed seven chapters—the guide would lack the wis- dom that can only come from a secondary and post-secondary collaboration. Many thanks to Jack Bareilles, Natalia Boettcher, Mike Benbow, Ron Perry, Robin Pickering, Jennifer Rosebrook, Colby Smart, and Robert Standish. ~ 9 ~ Introduction If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past, when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win. —howard zinn1 In 2003, when A People’s History of the United States sold its millionth copy, it was clear that Howard Zinn had pioneered a new way of thinking about American history. Americans everywhere gravitated to its message—that history is more bal- anced, relevant, and even empowering when examined from the “bottom up” rather than from the “top down.” Educators throughout the nation who were dis- illusioned with traditional textbooks that told history solely from the voices of the “important,” “extraordinary” people, embraced A People’s History as a long-awaited teaching tool that gave voice to the “unimportant,” “ordinary” people whose coura- geous resistance helped shape modern America. I was one of those educators. In the years before I adopted the “bottom up” approach, it was painful to watch my students struggling with one-sided textbooks about the great white men of America whose actions and voices did not speak to them. I began asking the questions that form the foundation of Ronald Takaki’s study, A Different Mirror. “What happens when historians leave out many of America’s peoples? What happens, to borrow the words of Adrienne Rich, ‘when someone with the authority of a teacher’ describes our society, and ‘you are not in it’”?2 These questions led me to A People’s History—the required text that has pro- vided the intellectual forum for analysis, conceptualization, and debate in my American history classes at Humboldt State University for the past ten years. So, what are the benefits of using A People’s History? What makes it different from other history texts? It forces my students to actually think! It evokes vis- ceral responses. It forever changes the way they examine the voices of the past. And it forces my students to ask the all-important analytical questions: What ~ 11 ~ 12 ~ introduction perspective is clearly apparent in, or absent from, these pages? Why haven’t we learned about this before now? What speaks to us, and why? How much of this information is real and actually based on primary documentation? This last question is the one so many history teachers are eager to hear. For years, many of us have encouraged our students to read the words and examine the actions of the “ordinary” people who have shaped American history—de las Casas, Nathaniel Bacon, Sojourner Truth, Black Hawk, Ida B. Wells, Emma Goldman. We have been thrilled when our students compared and contrasted these voices with the secondary analysis of historians who wrote about them. We have learned that when our students observe history through many personal lenses, they make intel- ligent observations about what Americans have done right, about what we have done wrong, and about what we still need to do; they critically examine the progress we have made, the consequences of such progress, and the prospects for even greater and more egalitarian progress in the future; and they walk away from our classrooms with a sense of optimism that we have indeed “come a long way” and that they can be involved in the next progressive steps forward. In short, the voices of the ordi- nary men and women of America encourage our students to find their own voices. Today, all educators agree on the importance of using these historical voices— primary sources—in our classrooms. But we also face a daunting problem: it takes precious time and expense to locate and gather primary documents—especially those that deal primarily with resistance and the power of ordinary people to make pos- itive change in society—and to find a way to make them readily available to our students. Voices of a People’s History has solved this problem. Howard Zinn uses his encyclopedic knowledge of and first-hand involvement in people’s history to bring these much-needed voices together into one easily accessible volume. Used in any social-science course as a stand-alone textbook, in conjunction with another textbook, or in tandem with A People’s History, Voices is designed to add rich pri- mary source detail to our classes, as well as to provide an incentive for students to recognize and utilize their own voices. There is another critical reason for using Voices in classrooms across the nation, an enormous need that teachers are often afraid to address. As we enter the twenty- first century, it seems that dissent, resistance, and protest have become dirty words. Those who question government policies and actions are increasingly called unpa- triotic. Yet, as Howard Zinn reminds us, “One of the great mistakes made in dis- cussing patriotism—a very common mistake—is to think that patriotism means support for your government. And that view of patriotism ignores the founding principles of the country expressed in the Declaration of Independence.”3 Indeed, introduction ~ 13 some of the greatest American patriots have been the brave men and women who questioned government by resisting slavery, fighting for equal rights for all, and defy- ing government policies when they violate civil rights. These are the ordinary peo- ple whose stories form the basis for Voices of a People’s History. And their voices must be heard to today’s classrooms. How, then, can we best integrate Voices into our classrooms? Teaching with Voices suggests varied and exciting ways to combine the use of secondary and pri- mary historical materials in high school, college, and university classrooms.