Hundreds of people joined us online during the week of the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth (Aug. 24, 1922), for three memorable events.

We share here a few highlights from each session. We encourage you to check out the links to recordings, transcripts, and related resources.

On Howard Zinn’s actual 100th birthday, we held a celebration with noted speakers: Martín Espada, Kidada E. Williams, Myla Kabat-Zinn, Imani Perry, Alice Walker, Lauren Cooper, Bill Bigelow, and Anthony Arnove. Sports historian Dave Zirin and Teaching for Black Lives co-editor Jesse Hagopian were the MC’s.

The audiograms below give a flavor of the conversations.

The program was interspersed with clips of Howard Zinn speaking, including the example below of his skillful use of comedy to expose the absurdity of unjust practices and policies.

Participants commented on the power of the event. A few examples:

The theme of the event was based on Zinn’s autobiography, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, and was co-sponsored by the Howard Zinn Trust, Tamiment Library at New York University, and Busboys and Poets.

The centennial week included a teacher workshop on the Red Scare, since the same tactics are used today to thwart the teaching of people’s history. Teachers from around the country were introduced to a mixer lesson about McCarthyism and to primary documents from the Tamiment Library.

The session began with a critical examination of a U.S. history textbook as an example of the misinformation students receive from the standard curriculum, the narrative that the anti-CRT bills are designed to enforce.

In the textbook:

The mixer lesson, facilitated by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca and Cierra Kaler-Jones of the Zinn Education Project, challenged the textbook biases listed above. Primary documents, introduced by Michael Koncewicz of Tamiment, demonstrated how the 1940s Red Scare targeted teachers and the curriculum.

The third event was a forum drawing on Howard Zinn’s 1970 speech at the Society of American Archivists conference, when he urged archivists “to take the trouble to compile a whole new world of documentary material, about the lives, desires, needs, of ordinary people.”

The panelists highlighted efforts to humanize the archives and participants discussed today’s opportunities and challenges.

Each presenter shared examples of community-based, radical archives and/or described some of the challenges to archiving the history traditionally marginalized and discounted by large institutions.

These participants’ comments highlight some of the points made in the forum:

For the Zinn Centennial, the Baltimore-based, employee-owned Taharka Brothers produced a “Power of the People” ice cream.

The carton has a QR code to introduce people’s history resources from the Zinn Education Project and the lid features the #TeachTruth campaign.

Read Howard Zinn’s Work

Rethinking Schools has published a “Zinn at 100” essay in each issue this year. The topics are nationalism, empire, socialism, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

In addition to A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote more than 20 books covering topics such as the Civil Rights Movement, labor, the anti-war movement, critiques of prison and policing, and more.

Beacon Press, Haymarket Books, The New Press, and Seven Stories Press are offering a free e-book, A Life of Activism: Howard Zinn in His Own Words – Selected Writings for the Centennial.

We are sharing quotes by Howard Zinn from his books and speeches. Join us and share your favorite Zinn quote with #HowardZinn100.

Our selection of writing by Howard Zinn on prisons includes an essay called “Solutions” from Justice in Everyday Life: The Way It Really Works, published in 1974.

In the spirit of prison abolitionists today, Zinn wrote that, “Prisons cannot be reformed, any more than slavery can be reformed. They have to be abolished. And yet, they will not be abolished until society is changed, until people think differently about punishment, about law, about crime, about violence, about property, about human beings.”

For the Howard Zinn Centennial, share YOUR story of when you first read A People’s History of the United States or how you teach people’s history.

Share your story on social media with #HowardZinn100. If it is a teaching story, we can send you a book in appreciation.

with People’s Historians

We invite you to join our monthly classes with people’s historians. In each session, a teacher interviews the historian and breakout rooms allow participants to meet each other, discuss the content, and share teaching ideas.

Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.