Premiere performance of The People Speak in Britain on Sunday 19th September 2010
From the History Channel (UK) on the premiere of The People Speak in Britain:
"The People Speak is a unique celebration of British history. Through live performances and readings The People Speak will highlight significant moments in our history where people have spoken out for change. Taking part in the event are some of the U.K’s leading actors and musicians.
"The event will take place at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End on Sunday 19th September 2010. It will be co-directed and narrated by BAFTA award-winning and Oscar nominated actor Colin Firth."
To enter the competition to win tickets to the event, please go to:
New art book by Eleanor Rubin, with foreword by Howard Zinn
"If the role of art is to join beauty to a deep caring for people in trouble, for a world in trouble, if it is to transcend the artificial boundaries that keep us apart, if it is to join us in solidarity with other sentient beings and with the natural world, then Eleanor Rubin fulfills the most profound responsibilities of the artist."
- Howard Zinn
"Don’t you wonder: why is it necessary to declare me dead again and again?"
Marx is back! The premise of this witty and insightful “play on history” is that Karl Marx has agitated with the authorities of the afterlife for a chance to clear his name. Through a bureaucratic error, though, Marx is sent to Soho in New York, rather than his old stomping ground in London, to make his case.
Howard Zinn, best known for his book, A People’s History of the United States, introduces us to Marx’s wife, Jenny, his children, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, and a host of other characters.
Brian Jones, an African American actor, teacher, and activist, has been performing this engaging one-man show across the country since 1999.
Marx in Soho is a brilliant introduction to Marx’s life, his analysis of society, and his passion for radical change. Zinn also shows how Marx’s ideas are relevant in today’s world.
Praise for Brian Jones performing Marx in Soho:
"It was smart, it was funny, and it was the perfect thing for the times in which we live."
— Michael Moore
"[Zinn] mounts a clarion defense of the principles of Marxism while taking a timely jab at a consumerist culture run amok... A witty and spontaneous mouthpiece, Jones invests his character with a surprising degree of urbanity and savoir-faire."
— L.A. Times
"engaging and charismatic... The audience was clearly with him as he critiqued the death penalty, mega-mergers and mass media. You wouldn't imagine that social criticism could make for lively theater, but Zinn's text and Jones's acting deftly blended the political with the personal."
— Washington Post
"Brian Jones deserves the highest "marx." Find out how Karl Marx lived, what he thought, and what he might think today. Hilarious and informative. A superb performance."
— Amy Goodman
Howard Zinn's book The Bomb to be released by City Lights Books
... timed to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan.
On Wednesday, September 29 at 7:00 pm, we invite those in the Bay Area to join us for a celebration of The Bomb at City Lights Bookstore. Writer, lecturer, and anti-nuclear activist Daniel Ellsberg will be here to discuss Howard Zinn's legacy and vision for peace.
"[Zinn] tried to provide more than a simple historical account of indiscriminate bombings conducted during World War II. ... He wanted to warn us that indiscriminate aerial attacks on civilians, a military strategy with a long history, are still part of the harsh reality of many peoples' lives in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, and that we as civilians ought to do our utmost to prevent this carnage of our fellow human beings."
— Yuki Tanaka, from the introduction to an excerpt published in JapanFocus
"Part history, part memoir, part sermon, The Bomb is meant to wake up citizens, to rouse them to reject 'the abstractions of duty and obedience' and to refuse to heed the call of war."
— Jonah Raskin
"The Bomb is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society."
— David Swanson
(For the full review visit http://warisacrime.org/node/54059)
The People Speak: music and DVD
Track listing:
BOB DYLAN - Do Re Mi
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - The Ghost Of Tom Joad
EDDIE VEDDER - Masters Of War
PINK - Dear Mr. President
RANDY NEWMAN - Sail Away
LUPE FIASCO - American Terrorist
JACKSON BROWNE - The Drums Of War
JOHN LEGEND - What's Going On
EXENE CERVENKA & JOHN DOE - See How We Are
TAJ MAHAL - Blues With A Feeling
ALLISON MOORER - Brother Can You Spare A Dime
RICH ROBINSON - Only A Pawn In Their Game
Only genuine passion for an extraordinary and powerful project could bring together artists ranging from Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Lupe Fiasco and John Legend to Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder for exclusive live performances. They and others are heard on The People Speak (Verve/UMe), the soundtrack of the documentary being released December 8, 2009, in conjunction with the December 13 broadcast of the film set to air on History.
Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, The People Speak focuses on the concept of democracy based on the lives and experiences of ordinary Americans who, through their words and actions, changed the course of history. Narrated by Howard Zinn and based on his bestselling book, A People's History of the United States, and Voices of a People's History, this groundbreaking documentary film illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today, reminding us that democracy is not a spectator sport and to never take liberty for granted. A journey from the founding of this country to the civil rights movement and beyond, The People Speak uses star power to celebrate democracy: executive producer Matt Damon reads from The Declaration of Independence; Bruce Springsteen performs Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land"; while other accomplished performers, including Morgan Freeman, Marisa Tomei, Josh Brolin, Viggo Mortensen, Kerry Washington, Bob Dylan and Eddie Vedder lend their voices to help re-create the emotional impact of these moments in history.
Howard Zinn to appear in upcoming documentary, Hit and Stay, on the "Cantonville Nine"
Q: Now, when you got to Hanoi, at some point, you got to experience what it was like to be bombed by American planes...
Howard Zinn: Yeah, well, we were put up in a hotel, and old French style hotel after all, old Vietnam Indo-China had been a French colony, and there had been a lot of sort of artifacts of French culture still around. There was this French hotel, and so Dan Berrigan and I were given rooms there, and the very first night, almost as soon as we went to bed, we heard sirens, and then a knock on our door, and a little Vietnamese women, we opened the door, motioned for us to come with her and down, there was an air raid shelter down under the hotel, and that’s where people went during these air raids, and they were in this air raid shelter, or huddle, the guests of the hotel, people from all different countries you know, diplomats and journalists, and so yes, it was the first experienced being bombed by our own airplanes. For me, who had been a bombardier in the Air Force, it was a special experience being on the receiving end of bombs, instead of the delivering bombs, as I had done. So, that was just the beginning actually of series of bombings of Hanoi, which we went through every day when we were in Hanoi, Hanoi was bombed. Every day we had at some point or another, to go into some shelter. There shelters all over the city which we would duck into, and Dan Berrigan used the occasion of one of those experiences to write a poem, about a little, called “Children in a Shelter”, about a little girl that he saw, a little Vietnamese girl, she was probably 5-years-old, and she was carrying her 1-year-old brother into the shelter. And so, he wrote a poem about that.
Howard Zinn's Daughter of Venus (directed by Jeff Zinn) to be performed at W.H.A.T.
Daughter of Venus
by Howard Zinn, Directed by Jeff Zinn
Thursday - Sunday, May 27-June 26
curtain: 8pm - Tickets: $17-$34
Our 2010 season opens with Howard Zinn's Daughter of Venus. A searing family drama set against the backdrop of a world where governments gamble with mutual annihilation. Zinn reminds us that sometimes the small choices we make have vast repercussions on our world and on the people we love.
"A fluid and passionately committed style... Interweaves a story of familial tensions and national politics, and in doing so reminds us that the way we live our lives... can have repercussions and implications for the life of the nation at large." (Boston Globe)
Hosted by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/) and New York Times best-selling author, most recently, of Breaking the Sound Barrier.
Saturday
March 6, 2010
7:30 pm
doors open at 7 pm
FREE
New York Society for Ethical Culture
2 West 64th Street
New York, NY 10023
Please join us at this special tribute performance for the great radical historian Howard Zinn (1922-2010), http://www.howardzinn.org/. Best known for his book, A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn's writing and activism has left an indelible mark on our understanding of U.S. history. His most recent work is the acclaimed documentary The People Speak (http://www.thepeoplespeak.com/).
Zinn's play MARX IN SOHO is a witty and insightful answer to the question, "If Karl Marx could see the world today, what would he say?" Teacher, actor, and activist, Brian Jones has been performing this play all over the country since 1999. An audiobook of his performance, introduced by Howard Zinn, will be released soon by Haymarket Books.
New York Society for Ethical Culture's 100-year-old building is accessible for most wheelchair users with prior arrangements. Please call ahead (212-874-5210 x107) for set-up of our portable lift system and plan to arrive one hour before start time.
The People Speak on the History Channel
The Howard Zinn documentary "The People Speak" premiered on Sunday, December 13, 2009, on the History Channel
Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, the documentary feature film THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice.
Narrated by acclaimed historian Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.
THE PEOPLE SPEAK is produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Anthony Arnove, and Howard Zinn, co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn, and features and dramatic and musical performances by Brolin, Damon, Rosario Dawson, Bob Dylan, Michael Ealy, Lupe Fiasco, Morgan Freeman, Jasmine Guy, John Legend, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Sandra Oh, Viggo Mortensen, Bruce Springsteen, Marisa Tomei, Kerry Washington, and many others.
(1st row L-R) Allison Moorer, Matt Damon, Howard Zinn, Abbe Raven, StaceyAnn Chin, Viggo Mortensen, (2nd row L-R) Danny Glover, Chris Moore, Lupe Fiasco, Josh Brolin, Q'orianka Kilcher, Jasmine Guy, Harris Yulin, (3rd row L-R) Michael Ealy, Anthony Arnove, Darryl McDaniels, Nancy Dubuc, Rich Robinson, Christina Kirk, and Kathleen Chalfant. Backstage at Jazz at Lincoln Center, November 19, 2009, NYC Premiere of The People Speak.
Howard Zinn is 2010 New York University MLK Humanitarian Award Recipient
NYU press release:
On February 10, 1961, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech on the campus of New York University that advocated for civil rights and championed nonviolent protest for social change. For the fifth-consecutive year, the University will commemorate Dr. King’s visit and his legacy by hosting a weeklong schedule of special events and programs. This year’s theme “Who Will You Inspire to Dream?” is intended to remind us of Dr. King’s message of activism, motivation, and leadership in service to the community.
The Week will showcase featured events that include the University-wide Feature Celebration in the Eisner and Lubin Auditorium, Kimmel Center, January 21, 2010 at 7pm. Join us for an evening of NYU student and special guest performances; the 2010 MLK Humanitarian Award presentation to distinguished alumnus, historian and author of “A People History of the United States,” and the landmark film, “The People Speak,” Dr. Howard Zinn and remarks from NYU President John Sexton. The Week will culminate with dozens of volunteer opportunities and community service projects.
MLK Week 2010 will feature a wide selection of programs, symposia and film screenings offered by NYU, student organizations, academic departments, and administrative units. If your NYU organization would like to plan an event to include in MLK Week programming, simply complete the online event submission form: www.nyu.edu/mlkweek.
Scheduled February 4 Howard Zinn appearance in Los Angeles changed to tribute
The Santa Monica Museum of Art was deeply saddened to learn of Howard Zinn's death.
He was due to speak at SMMoA on Thursday, February 4 at 8 pm about his new documentary, The People Speak.
The event will now become a tribute to Zinn and his remarkable work as a social activist.
Howard Zinn article in The Nation ... from August 1960
Finishing School for Pickets
By Howard Zinn
The good ladies of Spelman set aside decades of gentility and moderation to wade into the civil rights battle.
Atlanta, GA.
One quiet afternoon some weeks ago, with the dogwood on the Spelman College campus newly bloomed and the grass close-cropped and fragrant, an attractive, tawny-skinned girl crossed the lawn to her dormitory to put a notice on the bulletin board. It read: Young Ladies Who Can Picket Please Sign Below.
The notice revealed, in its own quaint language, that within the dramatic revolt of Negro college students in the South today another phenomenon has been developing. This is the upsurge of the young, educated Negro woman against the generations-old advice of her elders: be nice, be well-mannered and ladylike, don't speak loudly, and don't get into trouble. On the campus of the nation's leading college for Negro young women--pious, sedate, encrusted with the traditions of gentility and moderation--these exhortations, for the first time, are being firmly rejected.
Record and use The People Speak free for two years
The People Speak will air in 2 parts during the HISTORY Classroom programming hour on Monday, February 22nd and Monday, March 1st at 6am/5c. The Classroom hour is a commercial free copyright cleared programming block. Viewers are able to record Classroom programming and use these programs for 2 years free of restriction.
Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People's History -- a new website with free, downloadable teaching activities
The Zinn Education Project, a collaborative effort by Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools, has launched the new Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People's History website. Thanks to the support of an anonymous donor and the Caipirinha Foundation, the site features over 75 free, downloadable teaching activities for middle- and high-school classrooms to bring a people's history to the classroom. These are the best history-teaching articles drawn from the archives of Rethinking Schools magazine. The site also lists hundreds of recommended books, films and websites. The teaching activities and resources are organized by theme, time period and grade level. This is the only collection of its kind for educators -- print or online -- in the country. Please visit and bookmark the new Zinn Education Project: Teaching a People's History website. Take advantage of the free resources and send us your feedback.
The People Speak College Tour was a big hit across the country
Annoucement from The History Channel:
THE PEOPLE SPEAK is coming to YOUR University!
Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice. Produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Anthony Arnove and acclaimed historian Howard Zinn, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.
THE PEOPLE SPEAK COLLEGE TOUR will bring the film's producers and cast members to eight universities across the country for live readings, clip screenings, and in-depth discussion!
Newsweek.com
Free Radicals: Will a new documentary help historian Howard Zinn break through into the mainstream?
Kristi York Wooten
December 10, 2009 http://www.newsweek.com/id/226328
And television coverage preceding the premiere of The People Speak
Lengthy interview of Howard Zinn by Bill Moyers about The People Speak:
Home 
-MelanieLei.jpg)
-LaurenSeibert.jpg)
