Today would have been Howard Zinn's 96th birthday. We miss him every day, but we are encouraged to know that his writing and activism live on in classrooms across the country. Below, we share two new books based on Howard Zinn's work, a brilliant and entertaining talk Zinn gave to teachers about 10 years ago, and the moving testimony of a New York City teacher who used a Zinn Education Project lesson in her classroom.

Howard Zinn's Southern Diary Published

The University of Georgia Press has published  Howard Zinn's Southern Diary: Sit-Ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women's Student Activism by Robert Cohen with a foreword by Alice Walker. The book includes diary entries from Howard Zinn's time teaching at Spelman College (1956-1963). 

Historian Robert Cohen offers a substantial overview of Zinn's role at Spelman and other archival documents, including Zinn's arguments in a debate about the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) at Emory University.

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History By Howard Zinn Beacon Press has published a new edition of Howard Zinn's 1994 autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History. This updated version includes a foreword by professor and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Howard Zinn Talks to Social Studies Teachers In November 2008, the Zinn Education Project co-sponsored a talk by Howard Zinn to several hundred teachers at the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference in Houston. Zinn reminded teachers that the point of learning about social studies was not simply to memorize facts, but to nurture in students a desire to change the world. "A modest little aim," Zinn acknowledged, with a twinkle in his eye. With a new school year underway, this is an excellent time to watch the talk online.

Teaching People's History

Most heartwarming are the stories teachers share about using Zinn Education Project lessons with their students. For example, Jessica Lovaas, a high school social studies teacher in New York City, wrote about using the lesson Reconstructing the South from our Teach Reconstruction campaign: 

After coming up with their own proposals for land distribution through the role play, students were eager to predict and then "find out" what actually happened, gobbling up the Zinn Education Project (ZEP) readings following the role play with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Even long after the role play lesson ended, students kept returning to the deeper debates of justice and retribution, radicalism and realism, equity and equality that animated the role play.

Running ZEP's role play at the beginning of the Reconstruction unit was an incredible experience ---- the absolute highlight of my teaching career to date. I only hope I can frame future units in such a way that propels students to grapple with complex, unanswerable questions that have inspired centuries of struggles for justice. 

The world would be a better place if many more students engaged in debates of justice and retribution, radicalism and realism, equity and equality. Please help us reach our goal of signing up 100,000 teachers to bring people's history to the classroom in this new school year. Make a donation today.