Howard Zinn on Democracy Now!

“We’re trying to energize people by learning a history that is provocative and that is inspirational.” —Howard Zinn

On May 13, 2009, Howard Zinn was a guest on Democracy Now!, where he discussed the new edition of A Young People’s History of the United States (Seven Stories Press) and played clips from the forthcoming documentary The People Speak.

Zinn said, “In this Young People’s History we don’t present the history of victimization; we present the history of people fighting back. We want to give Americans a history [that] shows them that it’s possible to fight back, that you don’t have to depend on the President and Congress and the Supreme Court. In fact, you had better not depend on them, because they’re not going to solve the fundamental problems that we have in our society. We can only do it ourselves, when we organize, when we act, when we protest. And so, we’re trying to, yes, energize people by learning a history that is provocative and that is inspirational.”

Listen to the show or read the transcript here.