and never occurred to me they might stop feeding me. through my own arrogance i was so full of myself. each place we went to come it was a different sort of threw it rice, tomato, a chicken leg i had a discussion we got chicken and they said i am not sure it was chicken prices i.d.'s it was a chicken leg and a set i am not sure. i got chicken i am not sure what you got. [laughter] by the last place we got to you could tell it was either their wives or mothers bookie in the food because it was really good. looking back at was thinking was a really good or i be as for so long it just tasted. that is a duty to saltine for 30-- by the time you ea

writs it taste like us take? [laughter] i don't know. those last two meals were really, really good. and it was seasoned. i thought it was my last meal up that time. i thought it is this it? [laughter] you did not give me a piece of chalk up. too new? than i was rescued the next day. >> thank you for your service we appreciate without people like you we cannot live in the country today. do you still keep in contact with the marines to rescued you? >> and palmdale california one of the marines showed up to the book signing he drove up two hours to come see me. and by keeping contact with the two others and one in

the dc area there is one at 29 palms and slowly but surely i am getting in contact with more and more of them. they are so awesome. i constantly tell them thank you so much berkshire say the days they say it was nothing just doing my job. [laughter] rescuing he was like the coolest part. i say dude. you don't know. and they blow it off. they are outstanding they rescued us, put us on the helicopter to go to kuwait and kept on going with the mission. they dealt miss a beat. how incredible is that? talk about her wisdom, all day long they are my heroes. is that it? want to get to signing? thank you so much. [applause]

i appreciate everybody u.k. amount. >> shoshana johnson sir the u.s. army 1998 through 2003 retiring on a temporary but disability honorable discharge. she was awarded the purple star and prisoner of war middle. bring more information visit shoshana johnson.com and amy goodman. this is about and a half -- two and a half hours.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] how low. the lowest level women drummers empowerment project. give them a hand. [applause]

their leader is fresh back from gone up. welcome back. it is wonderful to have you here always. she will be back the next time coming on the 24 effective yuri bree and by a back for the especially bad. can you hear me? i am so sorry we cannot have enough room for everybody to be here but they he for being here are standing in the weather to be here. [applause] thank you. the g.o.p. is speaking about the fact we are outside with all of this know so global warming is over. 1/2 to agree the ice machine is working out. global warming is not over and then that someone from maine who said they have the warmest winter they had been a long time. things are shifting.

84 being here it is a special night. i want to say a couple of words about our bookstore. it is run by a teaching for change. [applause] the reason why the bookstore is important to mention tonight, they received a fair amount of resources from someone who has studied under howard 2122 start the education and project he was all about educating people because he believed that is where you start in the cost her-- classroom. he began the class is to say you cannot be neutral on a moving train he inspired this person to grow and provide enough resources in teaching for change to have 4,000 packets distributed to middle school and high

school teachers that teach history and social studies including a copy of the people's history of the united states. a copy of a people's voices and a copy of this cd so we will be learning about this pitiful history. i met howard taking a class that was offered by ralph nader. he offered a class for an institute for teachers of social studies and history teachers and ask me if i'd wanted to be a part of that class. i said that some of the. howard was there and he spoke and lois spoke and other interesting people about how to hit -- teach history the right way. he started my friendship with him and we had a wonderful friendship and correspondence.

i have a couple of boxes a wonderful stories i wanted to read you a couple of them >> i have kids and a word beginning to play soccer. i talked to him on the phone and he said mayor villager in response. it is good to hear from you. yes, when your kids discover something like soccer as when columbus discovered america act, the parents of course, will suffer for it. so out setting up for the tv series and the speak series he says i have done some writing were mostly a script that should be a pilot program it is a tv series based on people's history it is a long shot but i have given the option to the

cinematographer in new york who thinks he can pull it off. we will see. you need to raise $2 million which i have offered to give him he does not want laundered money. he said we should talk soon. levy on friday / three almond money. believe better not i have a winning i have been asked to officiate. my first and last gig for it said something here this is hard to read, it was written on the paper that fades and 95. how are you? we think if you from time to time and hope everything is going well for you. ron is painting. are you? running around the country trying to start a revolution.

it is only a matter of. [laughter] up been or again minneapolis colorado and next week will go to pennsylvania and texas. he continues to start the revolution and says one other letter here in 1997, we have worked on this play and i got to know him through that and he came back several times to talk about the play he was so excited, it was about karl marx coming back to clear his name because the soviets did have given communism a bad name and he was back from the heavens and talking back and forth he said i made at least one change. do you remember you were horrified telling jenny to shut up?

a woman would never say that you pointed out and reno jenny was not iranian. she wasn't. that was supposed to be funny. i have changed that as you have seen in the script also have cut down the number of times shit appeared. i realized it was causing diarrhea. that is the type of humor that he had. when we heard that he had died, it was passed to me in a note we were on suggests -- c-span. thank you c-span for covering this program this. [applause] i was interviewing phyllis benefit who just had heard latest print morale and somebody slipped me a piece of paper at the end of the conversation i broke down and cried because i had just talked to howard two days

before that am planning to be your april 13 and obviously that would not happen. i was very shocked by the news. and c-span god bless them as a record everything they recorded all incident of the breaking down and the whole conversation in afterwards. thank you again to c-span for always being there for these types of programs. i will fight to bring up to the estates stage of this stage his close ties to howard zinn as he rode a people's history of sports just like the united states sent out a series of different drugs including yay proposal stage people's history for young people, a history for minorities and the people's history for the people of iraq being made right now. this has spawned blocks out

of the first original book but has now sold over 2 million copies and made it the fourth best seller for the new york times' best-seller list. how word lives on in. also on a sirius/xm radio talking about sports and activism and a great friend of busboys and poets please welcome david. [applause] >> get comfortable, it will be a wonderful evening. we're here tonight of course, to honor our friend, a fellow fighter for social justice and for most of us, our teacher, teacher, mr. howard zinn.

[applause] i am david and your mc and we will get the first speaker on stage. this is not a typical memorial buy any stretch of the imagination. the marching orders we have really came from howard himself. this starts to about three years ago when howard got a bizarre call from "the boston globe" and a reporter said i have been assigned to work on your obituary. imagine kitty a call like that? he you always was quick and his response is what is your deadline? [laughter] that started a discussion that howard began to have with close friends and confidants and he said when i die, please no melroy else. would ever you do, and no

memorials. his friends said guess what you touched a lot of people in your life there will be memorials. and howard said okay but if there will be and has to be about the work. had passed to be about the struggle. it has to be about to the music of the struggle, the words of a people's history of the united states. the history, it has to be about making the world a more just place and said frankly if you have a bunch of historians copeland stage and paid tribute , i may not attend. [laughter] said so we have sculpted this evening to be for howard for as much as it is for the work to pay tribute to an first of all, give

yourselves a round of applause for being out here on this horrible day. that is an amazing tribute to howard. this is to we have who will be on stage to night. all divided up for maximum of enjoy it buy you wonderful people. we have speakers like ralph nader, amy goodman, marian wright edelman, phyllis bennis, rich rubenstein and geoffrey millard. [applause] we will have music tonight from bernice johnson reagon from sweet honey and a barack. and i agree group with a name that was very close call them was a revolution. and we will also have free beings to night, and a

personal request of mind, muhammed ali as well as the forestry of a person who just passed away whose name is lucille and they will be bred by eight sarah browning and others. but i think we have the evening here tonight that would have done howard broward. the first speaker has been called an unreasonable man. [laughter] i would make the case we held all benefited from his unreasonable this in a myriad of ways firmness seat belts to clean drinking water to the many issues the over 40 nonprofits he have launched in his life have fought. he is also the author of a book, a novel called only the super rich can save us. that is a satire. [laughter] and, like howard come away

he is so perfect to start tonight, he was a principal opponent of the idea if we'd just elect the right democrat than we will have shangri-la. but he has a motor that those have his aides struggled to keep pace with. ladies and gentlemen,, mr. ralph nader. [cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. i also think andy shallal and all of the people here for making this celebration of howard zinn life possible. you will hear the vast dimensions of the activities

and the speakers' that will be here very shortly. to me, howard is representing dissent in america across a bet -- broader spectrum of misuse and activities to the organizing function to the inspiration function. dissent is the mother of a cent. if you look very carefully at what we have achieved in our country, representing civil-rights and civil liberties, and whether substantive or procedural, they started off as it dissent birkenau they have come to the status. some of the role is one that is not simply drawing a line in the sand and saying no.

of course, it includes that. it is much more than that. is moving toward a higher level of activity that represent a filament of life's possibilities. starting with human rights. i am here to talk about howard zinn after life on earth. very often end with people who have advanced justice over the years and define their life as such, the this earth. they provoke sweet memories, recollections, all of which 10 to be motivating poor a period of time. they establish exemplary behavior, which often replicate themselves among the young.

but we need to go further than that. the legacy of howard zinn should be institutionalize in the best sense. said great citizens of europe wants said without people, nothing is possible. without institutions day chez thing with the naacp and its founders american civil liberties union and its founders, the sierra club and its founders. and other institutions that have lifted the country's expectation level into reality. i thank starting here it is the first of howard's celebrations that will go to

new york in madison wisconsin and boston and possibly chicago and the west coast. to express our general intent in considering the establishment of the institute for peace and justice. it will not be bureaucratic but the issue and principal and to take off from the final recommendation that howard always ended his speech design that means the neighborhoods that was his bottom line once people became aware and blunts the facts were out, that was his bottom line and that is how we should extend his bottom-line prepare and do it by expanding the not so

young people. when senator paul wellstone and his wife lost their lives in the airplane crash a few years ago, their children did not waste one moment after the agreed being point* to establish the wellstone center for treating young organizers and other civic activities. so she and she love live on through the center it would be easy just to have memorials and attitudes and humor fed expressed truth her cup about senator wellstone and she'd love but then i a recall when galbraith past where there was no effort to extend the progress of economics, the

kind of wit and insight from the institutional elaboration for young galbraith to come. when molly ivins passed away , a greek and which he incisive columnist for a number of outlets and syndications, again, there is an attempt to extend what she stood for institutionally and their blood snowfall a lot. and when whinney he produced the gospel with the piece advocacy and as he led thousands of people from his position at yale university chaplain and there was no follow up, think of the

invigoration of a democratic society that comes from those kinds of follow ups. we must change the american way of funerals and memorial services. remus to it with our energy or zero days while our regulations are fast -- recollections are fresh with our sensitivity and can door. as it started off as you know, as a manual labor in in new york city. not a physician. did not go to college and tell 27 as a freshman. he was a bomb brigadier in the u.s. army and one of the runs over nazi occupied france he participated a and dropping napalm that burned french civilians. napalm that is the greatest

teacher. he'd never forgot that. he put his medals in the envelope and when he returned and resolved he would oppose all awards. he went back to france to visit the small town where the burden victim's had survived, those that did survive. the distinguishing be sure of howard zinn not that he opposed in justice four war and oppression, but he did not pick or choose. he did not oppose one in justice but for some reason the of the way at another in justice. and in the progressive magazine rothschild who carried his column every month had a list of think use of a personal think you, ed howard zinn.

and one of those it was thank you howard zinn for being a jew who dared to criticize israel suppression of the palestinians early on. [applause] that was a great list of thank you that rothschild delivered and you could see he could have written a book on it but wanted to get it out in capsule form. when you see the range, you could see howard was a man for all seasons and his scope, breadth and depth of his concern and you will hear about people who were not ordinate the involved as

in the united states but every nation and i am aware of three-time since printing was established, the nation's history was full of omissions common myths, and lies. in the teaching of american history and our country was no exception to that. >> that was the authentic regulation of what has to come to be howard's greatest economic work. >> i will end with eight passage from his ratings on the war. here are his words.

you can see that they are nourished by his experience and more and when a comes up against the war mongers like cheney and bush who were draft dodgers even though they've loved the vietnam war and fled to the others to fight them for them. he never told rank and it is remarkable. and told them the board he did participate in. . . surely we should be able to

understand that difference between war and passivity. in that difference there are a thousand possibilities. end quote. think of iraq. think of the million iraqis that have lost their lives. think of our own soldi think of our own soldiers and hundreds of thousands coming back with disease and trauma and the horrific memories of what was done there. think of afghanistan, another repertory of the warmongering effort of a government out of control.

the government that violates its constitution, its statutes, a government that that is lawlessly bipartisan. i suppose howard zinn's favored definition of freedom might be mine, but i am not sure. and it goes back to marcus cicero, the ancient roman order and roman who, for my benefit defined freedom for all times when he said, "freedom is participation in power." i think that is what he stood for, and he knew that without freedom being participation in power, it was very unlikely that justice and peace would follow,

and i hope that you will take this great opportunity this evening through the conduit of c-span and other tv here and other press in a iraq rating a lab rating the extraordinary life of howard zinn, about whom noam chomsky said, he had this amazing contribution and i am quoting him, he had this amazing contribution that he made to american intellectual and moral culture. his powerful role in helping the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement." he was a man who thought, a man who experienced, a man who demonstrated, a man who motivated, a man who thought for himself, a man who we must

always remember in action on the ground. the zinn institute for peace and justice, i hope you will consider it. thank you very much. [applause] 's be one more time around for nader everybody. [applause] clap your hands if you never want ralph to be reasonable. [applause] okay. tonight, you should know this

first and foremost before we go on. this is actually something i just got a note about. tonight is actually being lifestream debt busboys and poets.com so we are putting this out life to people out there in virtual lala land. they are part of this to. us boys and poets.com. that played marx in soho has been mentioned earlier and there is this line in marx in soho where marx, if you have read the play you know it is marx but it is howard s. marks, and i don't know if marx was that funny. and, so it is marx saying, if you are going to perform civil disobedience, make sure it is with 2000 of your closest friends and don't forget to place a mozart. how word word word love to word loved music and anybody who would seem to people speak with a musical the musical contributions of everybody from

john legend's to bob dylan knows what music meant. howard was kind of hip. that is why it is such an honor for me to introduce the next performer. we are going to get some music now. we have a performance by a renowned singer composer scholar and social activist who is also a member of the legendary 1960s group, the freedom singers from the student non-violent coordinating committee. uc lawrence rubbing his hands together, excited. she later founded the a cappella ensemble sweet honey in the rock. [applause] it is an absolute honor to introduce to you all tonight bernice johnson reagan. [applause]

[applause] ♪ ♪ guide my feet ♪ while i run this race ♪ while i run this race in vain

♪ i was not supposed to get to the whole thing with only a shadow, so you could actually pretend you know what howard's life is about and act as if you you were not going to leave people by themselves when they are calling for support, so they think they are trying to rise does not die. and i don't care if you haven't ever sung it before. [laughter] if you don't get out of the track you are in, you can't make a new thing. ♪ guide my feet they note while i run this race they note guide

my feet they note while i run this race ♪ ♪ guide my feet they note while i run this raise ♪ ♪ i don't want to run this race in vain ♪ ♪ when i ago,-- that is a blues line. [laughter] so you just slide up the line. don't miss anything. [laughter] ♪ i am your child ♪ while i run this raise ♪ i i am your child ♪ while i run this race they note i am your child ♪ ♪ while i run this race ♪ i don't want to run this race

in vain ♪ ♪ stand by me ♪ while i run this raise ♪ stand by me ♪ while i run this race ♪ stand by me ♪ while i run this race they note i don't want to run ♪ ♪ this race in vain ♪ hold my hand ♪ while i run this race ♪ hold my hand ♪ while i run this raise

♪ hold my hand ♪ while i run this raise ♪ i don't want to run this race in vain ♪ ♪ this song comes out of slavery, and the song says, i know where i am. and i know i do not want to find myself there tomorrow. i cannot guarantee that i am going to get to some other place , but i can guarantee that i am stepping out of the ground i stand on. [applause]

♪ i have been thinking about how to talk ♪ ♪ i've been thinking about how to ♪ ♪ talk about greed ♪ i have been wondering ♪ if i can sing about greed ♪ trying to find a way of ♪ to talk about greed ♪ greed is a poison ♪ rising in a land they note people twisted in its command ♪ ♪ it moves like a virus ♪ sing it out everyone ♪ greed never stops ♪ and the work is never ever done they note in dating and free where ♪ ♪ there is really no escaping

they note i have been trying ♪ ♪ to find a way to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been trying to find a way they note to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been wondering they note if i could sing about greed ♪ trying to find a way they note to talk about greed ♪ ♪ not partial to gender ♪ or sexual desire a note all it wants is for you ♪ ♪ to possess and to buy ♪ it moves within the culture of ♪ greed really isn't picky ♪ it will make anybody fall they note greed is a strand of ♪ ♪ and the american dream ♪ having more than you need

♪ is the essential theme of ♪ i have been trying to find a way they note to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been trying to find a way they note to talk about greed. i have been wondering if i could sing along free ♪ ♪ i need to find a way to talk about greed ♪ ♪ it has been around a long time a note since before we began ♪ ♪ greed drove people to this land they note black men, women and children became somebody's property ♪ ♪ maybe you don't know they note exactly what i mean they note

you don't want to know about yours and my greed ♪ if you wonder if you are infected by greed ♪ ♪ than this song you really need ♪ i have been thinking about how to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been thinking about how to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been wondering if i can sing about greed a note trying to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i can see it in you ♪ you can see it in me ♪ you can see it in corporations ♪ all throughout the government.

you can see it in the bank's ♪ ♪ see it in the military ♪ i can see it in my neighbor ♪ i have been trying to find a way to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been trying to find a way to talk about greed ♪ ♪ i have been wondering ♪ if i can sing about greed ♪ trying to find a way they note to talk about greed ♪ [applause] [applause] i grew up in a black community in southwest georgia, and that's

black community worked to socialize us to excel within the confines of the system we lived in, and the idea was to in fact be as fierce as you could be short of getting yourself killed or put in jail because you are black. we weren't using black in those days, but for generations, we did that, and then we decided it was absolutely not a sufficient reason to be a life. because, there is a limit to trying to save your life. if saving your life means getting used to being called out by name you need to question. it doesn't mean you want to commit suicide. but it does mean that you don't

want to get old and die. people are calling out your name. so you step out of this path that has been carved by people who love you, who wants you to gain as much as possible, who want you to push her people to your people to the next rung inside of a safety zone, sort of. when we step out of that path, they locked us up. the lucky ones. someday killed but i got put in jail. when i got out of jail, and we went to the church, howard zinn was there. i think i never would have met him if i had not gotten put in jail. but it wasn't just me being put in jail. it was over 700 people being put

in jail inside of one week in southwest georgia. it was the largest mass arrest of citizens on record to that date and he came down to do interviews. he was the second person i had ever heard of who had written a book, so my world was not very large, but it was huge and my sense that i had rogan ranks with my own peoples formula for operating inside of this country. and there were two advisers to the student non-violent coordinating committee, who we called adults. [laughter] one was à law baker and the other was howard zinn.

[applause] and i guess the one thing i fee about coming here tonight is, how can i contribute to continuing stepping out of safety zones and risking my life? i think it is required of us if we actually have a chance to consider that we are daily, often being called out of our names. and, we are the only people who can do something about that. it is an individual thing but it is also an organizational thing. i was blessed to be a part of an organized, fierce, fierce, fierce force in this country and

howard zinn was also one of the recorders, not designers. he was in the midst contributing what he could. it is required of us all. thank you. [applause] [applause] right on schedule. do we have another round of

applause for bernice johnson reagon. [applause] and for those of you who couldn't see the people singing outside along with bernice, what do you guys think, should we send out some coffee and hot cocoa to the guys outside? [applause] that needs to happen. [laughter] i forgot for a second, i don't actually run this place. i shouldn't speak like i do. [laughter] howard cost great respect was not for fame. it was not for academic honors. it was for people who did the work and our next speaker exemplifies this as much as anybody in existence as somebody who does the work.

all you have to had to do was see you your in haiti, knockingn doors. to know that this is somebody who does the work. she is her great fun embedded journalist, our seeker of truth from democracy now, ms. amy goodman. [applause] >> i can't believe i am smiling here on this day when we are talking about remembering how worked. it is not the fact that he is gone, but the fact that in the music of bernice in the eyes and the tellings of the stories again and again that you will do that we know that he will live on and inspire self many.

that really is is the hope. [applause] and also, thinking about the fact that he would smile on this day he could as here he is being remembered on presidents' day, when you have, well just going to the introduction of voices of the people's history of the united states, howard cost words. the result of having your history dominated her history dominated by presidents and generals and other "important people is to create a passive citizenry, not knowing its own powers, always waiting for some savior on high, god or the next president to bring peace and justice." those are howard cost words. [applause] which is why he dedicated his life and his history and his

writing to as he said the voices of ordinary people of rebels, dissidents, women, black people asian-americans immigrants socialists and anarchists and troublemakers of all kinds. [applause] and how important that is today. the media cutting back on its coverage of war, from iraq to afghanistan, but with president obama costs surge in afghanistan we see the latest assault on marsha and the accidental, they say killing, they hit a house with had a house with their high-tech, very focused accurate weapons, which was the house next to the house they were supposed to hit, general mcchrystal apologized to president karzai. when the dust cleared, it was children who ran out of the

wrong house and they realized they had killed i believe it is now, i am not sure if the count is there, have a dozen children and other innocent people in this house. i am not saying that this was deliberate, but it was howard zinn who repeatedly reminded us that if you are going to engage in war, the overwhelming number of people who died in war are innocent civilians. and i think of that bumper sticker that should be on every car in this country until we have done away with cars, that says-- [laughter] there is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent civilians. those are howard zinn words. [applause] there is no flag large enough to

cover the shame of killing innocent civilians are killed howard zinn, a legendary historian, author and activist. when he died two weeks ago at the age of 87, it was a pain through the hearts of so many because he has lived the 20th century and documented those centuries before, giving us such a different picture from the grassroots to what has really created this country, the greatness of this country. i think it is fitting that we are here today still in february in black history month. although howard zinn was white he wrote so eloquently of the civil rights struggle and has bernice said and merry marian wright edelman will say he didn't only write about it, he participated in not just everywhere he, the shortest month of the year but for years

and years has been a part of the civil rights struggle in this country. his bravery for daniel ellsberg in his film now nominated for an academy award, the most dangerous man in america, when he was trying to figure out where he could hide the pentagon papers, so afraid that perhaps the "new york times" would publish them as they had them have been for months. what could he do? how could he ensure that they would be protected? he decided to go to howard and rod's house in massachusetts and said would you keep the stack of papers, thousands of them in your house? just want to make sure if i am arrested, as he went underground, that someone has them that i can trust. that was howard zinn. [applause] so there was howard teaching at stillman college.

historically black women's college in atlanta and i asked him about his tenure there. actually when he came on democracy now and you could see seal up see all of his interviews. we devoted a whole section at democracy now on howard. i asked him how he got fired. he said that it's a little harsh. we don't get fired as professors. our contracts are not renewed, he said. he said the student said spellman rose up at the tranquil and controlled atmosphere at the college during this event and went into town and got arrested and came back determined to change the conditions of their lives on campus. i supported them in their rebellion and i was too much for the administration of the college. zinn wrote in the afterword of a people's history of the united states, it was not until it joined the faculty at stillman college though that i began to read the african-american historian african-american

historian to never appeared in my reading list in graduate school, nowhere in my history education had a learned about the massacres of black people that took place amidst the silence of the national government pledged by the constitution to protect equal rights for all. so, when howard died, the next morning we called two people to be on democracy now from their homes, noam chomsky, his longtime friend and ally in the pulitzer prize winning author, alice walker. [applause] alice was a student of howard cost at stillman and she was speaking to us from mexico. she said he was thrown out because he loved us and he showed that love by just being with us. he loved to his to students and didn't see why we should be second-class citizens. 42 years after howard zinn was thrown out at stillman he was invited back. it was in 2005. he was invited back to give the

commencement address and receive an honorary degree. yes, times do change. [applause] noam chomsky, a longtime friend of howard and ross, gnome also just lost his wife, carol chomsky to brain cancer, reflected on what he called send's record and detailed study of what he called the countless small actions of unknown people that lead to those great moments that enter the historical record. well, i asked speaking of presidents' day, last may, i ask howard zinn what he thought of president obama in his first year in office. you know, when there was a division of whether progressive should support barack obama, howard zinn said yes or co-it is important to support barack obama for president.

last may he said on democracy now, i wish president obama would listen carefully to martin luther king. i am sure he gives verbal homage as everyone does to king but he ought to think before he sends missiles over pakistan in before he agrees to the military budget, before he sends troops to afghanistan before he opposes the single-payer system. howard zinn went on to say he would ask what would martin luther king do and what would martin luther king say? if he only listened to king it would be a very different president than he is turning out to be so far. zinn concluded i think we have to hold obama to his difference to people that make change, and so far he has not come through on that promise. [applause] that was howard's assessment of

president obama and because they want to hear what marian wright edelman has to say about her beloved teacher and what congressman john conyers has to say, snowed in in detroit i am just going to end with howard zinn's words. democracy now is dedicated to people speaking for themselves and so, what he taught us and teaches us is most important. he said, i wanted my readers to experience how a key moment in our history some of the bravest and most effective political actions sounds of the human voice itself. when john brown proclaimed at his trial that his insurrection was not wrong but right, when fannie lou hamer testified in 1964 about the dangers to blacks who tried to register to vote when during the first gulf war in 1991 alex molnar defied the president on behalf of his son and and of all of us, their words influenced and inspired so many people. they were not just words but

actions. to a minute or to minimize these voices of resistance is to create the idea that power only rests with those who have guns, who possess the wealth, who own the newspapers and television stations. i want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color or women once they organized organize and protest and create movements have a voice no government can suppress. [applause] he dedicated his book to the rebel voices of the coming generation. and just one last thought. when he was make made king that people speak, that just appeared on the history channel, and that was so wonderful that he got to see the realization of his work on television, a people's

history enacted by all of the great actors and singers. he was in boston and they were filming, and he was walking with mortenson to his favorite coffee shop which happen to be duncan donuts. as they were walking there, a person ran up behind him with a camera and said excuse me, excuse me. mortenson is so used to this and so tired of this, a person with a camera, can i take your picture but that is not what this person had to say. the person with the camera turned to him and said excuse me sir, would you mind taking a picture of me and howard zinn? [applause] democracy now. [applause]

>> our next speaker, how do you follow amy goodman? you follow amy goodman with sojourner truth. how about that? in 1851, the african-american abolitionists and former slave sojourner truth spoke to a gathering of feminist. the speech which was only a few minutes long was a landmark moment in the feminist and abolitionist history and it has been memorialized in kept alive through that people speak and voices of a people's history of the united states and it is going to be read right now by spoken word artist susanna elizabeth rose. she reads, ain't i a woman. [applause]

>> well children, when there is so much racket, there must be something out of kilter. i think that between the of the south and the woman of the north, all talking about riots, the white man will be in a fix pretty soon. but what is all this here talking about? that man over there says that women need to be helped and into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles or gives me any best place, and

ain't i a woman? look at me. look at my arm. i have plowed and planted and gathered and no man can best meet ever. and ain't i a woman? i can work as much and eat as much as any man, if i could get it. and ain't i a woman? i can take the lash just as well , and ain't i a woman? i have borne 13 children and seen most all sold off into slavery, and when i try out with my mother's grief, no one but jesus heard me, and ain't i a woman?

they talk about this thing in the head. what is this they call collect, intellect. that's right, honey. what has that got to do with a woman's rights? if my cup hold a pint you say in your cup holds a quart? then wouldn't you be mean if you wouldn't let me have my little half measure full? than that little man in a black bear, the man with a black collar over there he says woman can't have as much rights as men because christ wasn't a woman. where did your christ come from? where did your christ come from? from god? and a woman. man and had nothing to do with it. now, if the first woman god ever

made was somehow strong enough to turn the world upside down all by herself, then all these women, these women, all of these women together ought to be able to turn it back right side up again. and now, they are asking to do it. while these men better step aside and let them. [applause] [applause] >> do you see why howard wanted this to be a part of his memorial now? oh yeah, thanks for the coffee. all right. [applause]

very cool. very cool, indeed. c. they chose to be here instead of seeing this live stream that busboys and poets.com. our next speaker now following sojourner truth, directs the new international project of the institute for policy studies. her latest which is available at the teaching for change bookstore at the back is called ending that war in afghanistan, a primer. please give it up for phyllis bennis. [applause] >> what an amazing night, what an amazing memory and what an amazing day to be doing this. because you know today is not only presidents day. that is really not very relevant. today is a very important anniversary and it is not without precedent. it is about us.

today is february 15. think back seven years ago. february 15, 2003, you go. when the world says no to war. and in new york city, there were more than half a million people filling the streets that became our streets that day. [applause] it was our streets, and in 665 cities around the world, beginning with the sun, when the sun rose in the south pacific and if it followed if followed the sun across asia and ultimately through europe and down across africa and jump the pond to latin america and last, last came to the united states or ergo it in the united states and 250 cities across this country, on february 15, we said no to war. and howard zinn was with us,

leading the chance in boston. so those of us who were in new york and those of us who were on the streets of d.c. and san francisco and chicago and new mexico, howard was with us. he was our teacher than, and he remains our teacher now. it was a day in deed for troublemakers of all kinds. oh yeah. it was howard's kind of event. and that day when the world said no to war, something was created and it was something very strange happening the next day. the "new york times" told the truth on the front page above the fold and they said once again, they are our two superpowers in the world, the united states and global public opinion. that means the white house and us because it was us on a global

realm. people all around the world. that morning, that morning when a small group of people led by archbishop desmond tutu met with kofi annan at the united nations. the first thing that bishop tutu said to kofi annan said we are here on behalf of 600 and 60 nations around the world and we are here to tell you those people marching in those 665 cities, we claim the united nations as our own. we claim it in the name of the global mobilization, and howard zinn was the one who taught us how to do that. it was his legacy of what it means to reclaim history. to reclaim something that i know congressman conyers was going to say today, and his plane was blocked because of the snow. but he said something very interesting that i know he was

going to say, which was to say that what happens when you start to realize that even a country that has been grounded in slavery and genocide can be reclaimed, but to do what we have to understand our history. we have to understand our history, not their history. we have to reclaim our history, not rewrite it. this isn't about revisionist history. this is about claiming the history that we know, and that is what howard taught us to do. and, now, now, when we see a different kind of president, a different kind of white house, but the same wars being waged around the world, we have a lot of work to do. we have to create a new kind of peace movement, a new kind of movement for economic justice, a new kind of movement for climate justice and a movement that

brings them all together. we need a new kind of movement that says no to war, that says we are entering nationalist. we stand with the people of other nato countries who are trying to get their government to withdraw their troops from afghanistan. we stand with the people of afghanistan who were saying get your occupation now. we have got enough problems than you are not making it better, you are making it worse. we stand with the people of iraq, for whom our occupation and our war is not yet over. we stand with the people of palestine is was occupation is enabled by our government. those wars, those occupations have to be ended and we have lessons that we have to learn how to do it and that is what howard zinn gave us. it was those lessons, and i would say whatever we think of what barack obama is doing in the white house today and

however much we know we need to challenge a great deal of what he is doing in the white house today, the fact that an african-american community organizer could be elected to the white house in this country, in the country grounded in racism and genocide and slavery, is partly because of the work that howard zinn did and what he taught us to do, what he taught us to do. and wealthy look now to what kind of pressure we need to bring in congress, what kind of pressure we need to bring on the white house, what kind of challenge we need to bring to the pentagon and those who serve the pentagon, we have to remember those lessons and apply them. amy talked about what is happening right now in marjah, the small town in afghanistan where only the first of what unfortunately but almost undoubtedly will be not the last group of civilians, half of them

children, killed by u.s. bombs, dropped by what they call, what do they call it? they call it drones. what a jerk sample do we have of what martin luther king taught us and todd howard zinn and he talks about the intersection of racism and poverty, then a trial and whose theory of origins is designed on the basis of racism because it says it is more important to save the life of a theoretically and presumably white pilots from the united states then the black or brown or yellow or white poor people in some other country, in this case afghanistan and in other cases iraq, pakistan, yemen or pakistan or whether next week? we have a lot of work to do and we have lessons from howard zinn. he heard earlier of the day that

paul wellstone died. some of you will remember that day. it was october 25, 2002 and the reason i remember that day the days not because it was the day that paul wellstone died but it was because on that day we created the organization united for peace and justice which played a leading role in the last years of the antiwar movement in this country. it was at that meeting creating that new organization that we got word of the death of paul wellstone. that is what happens with memorials. that is what happens with legacies. legacies don't just happen. they are made. and movements don't just happen. they are made as well. and that is what it means to remember the legacy of howard zinn. it is to build a new kind of movement. we have a lot of work to do. we have a lot of wars to end. we have an economic crisis to resolve. we have got a lot of work to do howard, and we are looking to

you to help us. thank you. [applause] 's be our next speaker, i am absolutely honored and thrilled to bring up here, a student at howard to happen to start an organization called the children's defense fund. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, and those who do not ascribe by gender, i have got to stop saying that-- everybody, please give it up for marian wright edelman. [applause] >> thank you. we are all set.

i have always felt very blessed to have been born who i was, when i was with the convergence of great leaders and great historical events, and howard zinn was among those great leaders who pardoned the civil rights movement which was one of the transformational move meant in history. i met howard zinn when i was 16 years old and a freshman at stillman college. we arrived at spellman together. i as a student he is the chairman of the social science department. and i will tell you, when he died, the nation mourned his loss as a pioneering historian and social after act of it, who revolutionized the way millions of americans, especially young americans, understood our shared history but for me, although his

writings and work inspired millions of readers, i was among the generations of students who were privileged to know him as a beloved teacher, as a matter and as a friend. spellman was his first economic job after his graduate study at columbia and it was a historically black, all women's college in atlanta georgia across the street from morehouse college where dr. king went to school. and this very tall and lanky and beautiful professor came and he, as chair of the history department, he brought a wife named rosalind who was hospital that-- hospitable and gorgeous and supportive of us who live together in the back of the spellman college infirmary, where students always felt welcome to gather and explore

ideas and share hopes and to chew the fat and to plot together how we were going to change the world. howard encourage students, but we call him how we and that was-- but he encourage students to think outside the box and to question rather than accept conventional wisdom. he was a risk-taker. he lost no opportunity to challenge segregation and atlantis theaters, libraries and restaurants and at airports. he encouraged us to do the same. the black spellman establishment did not like howard zinn any more than the white establishment did. and later, after he joined the faculty of boston university, its president john silver disliked him just as much as spellman's president because he

made some teachers and administrators uncomfortable by rocking the boat of the comfortable status quo. we felt he was a confidant and a friend as well as a teacher, contrary to the more formal and hierarchical traditions of many black colleges. he stress analysis over memorization, questioning in discussions and essays rather than multiple choices and pat answers and conveyed and affirmed their belief that message that i could do and be anything and life was about far more than bagging a morehouse man man for a husband. [applause] p live very simply and nonmaterialistic way. i have no hesitation in asking him repeatedly to borrow his airy old chevrolet to transport picketers to the department store or to scout out potential demonstration sites for

demonstrations against jim crow. he was passionate about justice and his belief in the ability of individuals to make a difference he was not a word mansoor. he said what he believed and encouraged us to students to do the same. he taught us to live by our convictions and not by conformity. he conveyed to me and other students that he believed in us and that we were powerful and not helpless to change what we did not like. he conveyed to members of the student non-violent coordinating committee whose photo registration and organizing efforts he chronicled in his book sick, the new abolitionists, and they are are a bunch of these new abolitionists who are now older but still young sitting here tonight, marian barry and dori ladner and adam choice and bernice reagan, but he conveyed to us, and he conveyed to the new abolitionists he believed

them and respected and supported our struggle. he was there for us when 200 students conducted siddons and seven of us got arrested and he served as their and former press secretary to call the police and let them know after we had gone down to the student sites, we had 10 in atlanta, where we would be. he was always there with a safe back in his home, to plan for us to plan civil rights activities by listening, not dictating and he always kept our secrets from the administration. he laughed and enjoyed life and taught us that it could be fun to challenge jim crow. i remembered our regular annual visits to georgia state legislature when spellman girls would go and sit in the white only section of the gallery to see the whole legislative-- legislature stopped to a hault as they began to yell and scream

and gavel and to move those folks out and put them in a place where they belong, and so after bringing them to absolute screech and we would nicely get up and walk out with how we with smiles on their faces to return the next year and dream about her next adventure. he spoke up for the week weak and the little people against the big and powerful people. and he did it his whole life. it was a marathon. he was not a stop by sprinter. he lived his justice convictions. a chronicler of the people's history of the silver rights movement, abu longings of the young and the poor and the weak to be free. his most profound message was entitled in one of his books and that is you can't be neutral on a moving train. howie taught me to question and ponder what i've read and heard and to examine and apply the

lessons of history and the context of the daily political social and moral challenges all around us. the racial discrimination particularly and equality. he combined book learning with exponential opportunities to engage in groups challenging legal segregation in engaging students as participants data collectors and witnesses and pending legal cases. he listened and he answered our questions and he reassured us of the rightness of our cause went when uncertainty and fear crept in and some of our college presidents and faculty members sought to dampen our spirits and discourage our activities. and i just personally want to say what an extraordinary gift he gave to me in 15 of the best month i ever had that at my life when he nominated me to go to europe. i got called to the president's office one day and i wondered

what infraction i got caught doing. spellman was a very sedate, tea party proper school. we had to go out in groups of three and we went out on sundays , we had to have our clothes on. it was an extraordinary atmosphere to raise young ladies and i liked many of us like many of us constantly challenge those rules, and so when i was called to the presidents office i was terrified but it turned out to be one of the great days of my life when i learned how we nominated me to spend a year in europe on a merrill fellowship was the second year that happen in the first young woman had gone the year before with a merrill scholarship and she had gone gotten what gone with gotten what they think the sweet breyer group ergo i couldn't believe it, here it was a crook from a segregated grove from a segregated town in south carolina at spellman college where i could not go out after 5:30 finding i was about to spend a year in europe. he did anything greater thing because he insisted that i not

go with the smith group for the sweet breyer group or any structured group that i at 18 and 19 could go to paris to navigate myself around the world and i did that for 15 months. i found that i could, i could be free and that i could be who i was and i could be up here with people of every stripe and every faith and every race, and it was the greatest 15 months i can remember as they wander around making my own decisions and when i came back they knew i would never ever fit into the south again. never into the segregated south. [applause] to anybody sense of what a woman to do, it freed me, and since i had been a free insider than i then i saw the world was a place where everyone was entitled to get as much as they possibly could with their talents and gifts in howard zinn gave me that freedom and i was

profoundly grateful. .. here. the movement came. we were all waiting for it, ready for it. that again allowed express to the new freedom that i had found as the student, finally, thanks to howard, by being able to go outside the south and look at our country as well as without, and how determined i was to make america really america and live up to it's values. i thank howard for that. we had the gift of freedom and travel and he empowered us to feel our leadership potential. i feel so blessed to have him a teacher. i love his people's history. i love his readings. and i love hearing sojourner truth. i guess since he believed so

deeply, we all know that democracy is not a spectator sport, i would like to end with my version of sojourner truth, and to remind me every day of who i am. but i love, and i think in the spirit of howard, her instance one >> and vichy was heckled by an old white man who stood up and said the slave woman i know worry about your anti-slavery ritchie's said that is all right though lord willing i will keep you scratching. [laughter] [applause] talked about the need to realize how word in the institution should be the most by any strategically

with their voices could make the biggest dog uncomfortable make the biggest wrong be right to does recited the civil-rights movement. i would propose says he believes in democracy we are the most local persistent for children and justice we are here today i have no doubt calling for the people's campaign when he died. 14 point* 5 million the gap has never been whiter it in the time to end poverty in the richest nation on earth. [applause] >> it is just unbelievable we are still debating health care coverage for every american in the richest nation on earth. it is unbelievable despite

all of the progress members sitting here in the civil-rights movement and the sacrifices remain the are facing new america apartheid with the present pipeline incarceration is becoming been new government would have to stop it and educate our children and replace it with a pipeline to college. [applause] is time for a new movement and we have to get out there and read defined in to move into the 21st century so everybody has a and level playing field in our rich way it. thank you. [applause]

>> again marian wright edelman? are you kidding me? hopefully this agreed archived at busboys and poets.com. right? before i introduce the next speaker talk about civil disobedience of the past the one to recognize somebody here briefly did you hear about what happened at the york were people were arrested surrounding the marriage board did you hear about that? those arrested fighting for marriage equality? one of the organizers drove down from new york to be here tonight.

the key for keeping it alive. [applause] it is a living history without question. we go from marian wright edelman to june jordan we lost to the caribbean american poet and author who framed their life around the question of social justice and wrote to be using both of you have never read them like poetry of the people and the one entitled some of us did not die. here we have june jordan with their speech right before the 1991 gulf war read by the fed do this radio host. please come up. [applause] >> thank you. let me just begin by saying what an on-air it is to be here with all of you to

celebrate the life of howard zinn and a special shout out to my sister's. [applause] i would also like to call to the spirit of june jordan. u.k. and correct me if i'm wrong, but this killer crusade, the conversion of a strange land into a killing field of the people into a video display the homicidal rhetoric history does not support, that our destiny is sir tint to condemn. this war has not changed one single human being. this war has not saved a single american life. of this war has not saved a

single is real-life. this war has not saved a single iraqi life. this great and understanding komen the infinitely casual overkill, dreaming and annihilation of all tenderness, for every recent summit every civilized approach, the arch the wall peaceable possibilities where it is the shrunken trembling earth that is eight environment in which this more has not saved one human being from terror or from unspeakable action. then why do we permit the

blasphemy to persist and expand as the entire middle east? i agreed to the monstrous consequences of this war. but i am reassured because not every american has lost his my doris will not everyone of my compatriots is a franco -- flag raft lunatic with the perversions of kicking ass on tv preferred they prepare huge number americans have joined with and none -- enormous numbers of americans in england france italy spain and muslim communities throughout india and pakistan cry out. stock. when i say huge i mean it. of 1,000 americans can

represent 250 million people, then how many multi multi millions do we anti-war movement have more than 100,000 coast-to-coast on every continent how many do we represent? how come nobody ever has that type of political mask? two night, a figure 21, 1991, where yet again the ruling white men despise in negotiations and intensify their arms linked arms chair prosecution of this evil war, this display of racist values:never allow for any nationalism that is not their own and never allow third world countries to have their own natural resources in never ever express loan feel regret or remorse or shame or horror as a loss of many human life that is not white.

two night. i am particularly proud to be african-american. by launching the heaviest air assault in history in against iraq january 15, george bush dared to desecrate the birthday of martin luther king, jr.. tonight in 83,000 bombing mission later is the anniversary of the assassination of malcolm x. and i am proud tonight to remember dr. king and remember about the mx and even as i pursue the difficult challenge of their legacy, both men became the target when they and their different ways to develop into global visionaries persisting against racism in alabama, harlem come as south africa, vietnam, neither of these could have failed to

condemn this carriage attack against the arab world. neither will they know anything less to equal justice and rights. hence the undeniably racist double standard levy against saddam hussein with the and alienated would be alienating both of them completely. i am proud to shake hands of the increasing numbers of african-american conscientious objectors them proud to observe although african americans remain disproportionately unrepresented in the armed forces, that we as a national community stand distinct up heart and the same for mall popular opinion and retain it proportionally higher level of opposition to this war and the horrendous invasion of decay. and a degeneration. i want to say something else.

specific to you, mr. president. it is true you can humiliate and you can hound and u.k. and smashed and burned and terrify and smirk and boast and defame and demonize and business in the act you can force somebody force a people to surrender what happens to remain there bloody bolsa into your dry hands. but all of us who are weak weak, we watched you. and we learn from your hatred and we do not forget. and we are

ready, mr. president. we are most of the people on this godforsaken planet. [applause] >> do it quick because people have been so patient and incredibly attentive just to let you know, what we have left because people don't have programs we will have music, one amazing fuld group and words from richard rubin steep from the institute of conflict resolution also words from muhammed ali although not here will have one of his great speeches read and sarah browning will be reading of poetry a cecile clifton and we will also be

going out tonight and also be in there we will get that after the revolution to say something about the new museum of history. please come on up and as revolution. [applause] >> history i learned there was despairing and the reality at the time when i was going up that the history i have learned was sort of was a grim recounting of the accomplishments of rich white men. and wars as if they could be one. and it was not until i saw

programs like eyes on the prize and read books like a people's history, that i learned about my cherokee ancestors and learned about the story behind the story that i had been told. we share the stage with howard on many locations across the country we are sorry to have to be here to night. but he was a remarkable historian and we're so thankful for his work for the we are glad to seeing through this revolution with you all.

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they give. >> that was in comparable teetwo. please give them a he end it is a wonderful to have you here all the time. [applause] 912 say a couple words before we go to the next segment how many of you live in d.c.? >> here at a by applause. [applause] wow. all right. i live there to i want to bring something to your attention. there is a bill before the city council right now that is about to be passed unless we do something about it. that is to attract northrop grumman to this city. of the headquarters is in los angeles wants to move to the district of columbia it is sponsored by jack evans

and he has made it his thing to bring in northrop grumman not enough to bring them here but also give them tax breaks and giveaways. 5.5 million dollars in direct giveaways along with 19 point* $5 million of tax abatements and talks -- tax breaks i did not get that as a business from the government i deduce better snow removal i think everybody is okay with it but what i am not all right is to provide war profiteers with more money to bring them here. i would really like you guys to get on the phone first thing tomorrow morning and let them know this is not acceptable and i want to challenge marion barry who is hear a single council member new-line of duty to be able to stand against this bill because he stands

against it. [applause] let's hear it for him. thank you. and then name of howard zinn if we want to organizer make a difference we should send a clear message to the war profiteers it is not acceptable for them to take the money of the people squander then take more to be here. they want to come here any way it is they know and the district of columbia they are right next to the powerhouse so they cannot be with our money to get more of our money so police. i know 90% to believe and forget about this. the 10 percent will say i remember something but i am not sure what it was. [laughter] but 5% will probably make the phone call. i urge you really. as howard zinn has always

reminded us and marian wright edelman has said democracy is not a spectator sport. i still believe the people can make a difference. it is hard and we have to look hard to recognize that. but please, please, please tomorrow what will you do? you will called the office and tell them marion barry has pulled his support of the bill and will be with the people and they do so much marion barry for standing with the people. thank you. thank you. thank you. now i would like again you will call jack evans tomorrow? when you call for a jack minnesota office know this is not acceptable. upon this how many of you promise me to do this? please hold your hand up.

turn to the person next you and say i promise i will call tomorrow. do it. is everybody promising? promising? everybody is promising? we will send a clear message to the war profiteers it is not acceptable to come to our city and take our money and continue to do the crap they continue to do. please stop them. thank you. i will now bring to the stage. the number again? 202-724-8000. is that the right number? that has been verified. i would like to bring to the stage jon judge the founder of the museum for untold history. come on up.

>> thank you. i am jon judge after the famous people i am at the best infamous but i have a working in the last two years to establish here in washington d.c. project endorsed and supported by howard zinn which is a museum of it in history. what i mean is history you don't see because of your assumptions and that you can see because of your paradigms' the counter narratives that our focused on a including herstory that is yet to be written and that you're not allowed two-seat that has literally buried your history just beyond our i live in 27 underground building is a history of the military in the united states since world war ii that is classified over 1 billion records we still cannot see. you don't own your own

history you are a conquered people. we cannot move forward until there is one more piece of hidden history that does not go in a museum that is the unwritten history that we can envision and change not of the passport of the future by one to create a museum or archives and libraries that would be research and community education for the 20 million tourists that come here to grab as many as we can to find out what hidden history is because most of america does not know history since world war ii of what has happened and how we got to where we are today but we can dig it up and make it public and educators cells and that will make us change. i left information in the vestibule on the way out and if you can remember it any other way.

jon judge starr power.net you can find it. thank you so much. [applause] i need your help. 202-724-8000 call jack gavin spirit of the next speakers from the institute of conflict analysis from george mason university, rich grinstein. are you here? [applause] rich rubenstein everybody. >> bank here. it is here to be here with so many people i admire. including andy shallal who is a community treasurer. thank you for doing this. i want to say something brief from the perspective of somebody that is a

teacher and a writer and tries to be an activist one howard zinn life and work mean to so many of us. i did not know how were very well. i only met him a few times through a friend through a great pakistani scholar. the was working at the stevenson instituted chicago in 1968 and i was in a pretty confused time and i have friends that will testify was probably can't use of was a lawyer trying to write a book about violence in america and had an interest in teaching and had gotten down to the democratic convention and was hit on the head in 1968

i had a wife and family and young children and i could not see my way clear to putting the pieces of my life in pieces of my personality together and he said i think you need to meet somebody who you have a lot in common with all the you do not know it. he is older than you but a teacher like you want to be interested in matters of "war and peace" like you are and violence and nonviolence and is a jew and a family person and likes to laugh and smile a lot like you do. you should meet howard zinn private howard at his apartment and chicago. he made currie and reset and talked for crow i remember what we talked about.

but i remember thinking here is somebody who is not trapped by any of these dichotomy is. he has a man that can be a teacher but also an activist but also a man who could be a jew and a half i cheer for palestinian rights. here is a man who embodies and thinks about things but does not let that stop him from acting. here is a man who is good humored and does not represent the streak of the movement. here is a person i would like to be when i grow up and that is when i told him. i said when i grow up by one to be something like you. he gave me a sense of my own

possibility it just like what he gave marian wright edelman and other students your own ability to cross over the lines to not be trapped in that either/or. but i want to say something more about his work because i just finished a book on why americans choose more calls reason to kill and incites howard very heavily which i thought of him a lot retained this book. i thought about him not only as a person who could crossover that either/or lines but a person who is able to live with and through certain kinds of contradictions without giving away 21 side or the other. what i mean for example,, the book i am writing books that american history to find out why we are such suckers for stupid

wars and what is it in our culture and fat our thinking in history that makes us vulnerable to certain appeal so that even after words and we come to our senses and realize we have been taken to the cleaners welleszes dollars last. again we're in a position we go again for the appeal of the fantasy we are in danger when we are not or the fantasy there is an evil enemy that wants to conquer the world would naturally the world belongs to us. what however did as a scholar it seems to me was give us a model of committed scholarship which is still good scholarship. many of the critiques of his or conservatives call him propaganda and say he was not a real historian.

he knew there was no such thing as objective history and it is all written from prospective and was not afraid of that. but he also had respect for the evidence. he did not just shoot his mouth off or pick and choose. he did not turn away from things that inconveniently did not fit into his theoretical framework he faced himself to face the uncomfortable data and deal with it. as a result he changed and his own views changed over time because he forced himself. he was not a dogmatist but a great historian. if i could be half this historian he was i would be very happy. second along the same lines lines, it is interesting to read material about howard and see how the been friends

of his state around his politics and don't like to use the word socialist very much. they don't and sometimes call him a leftist. howard was intellectual of the best kind to believed you needed to work on interpreting the world did not present itself to you in the immediate way but the mediated way meant you have to think hard about things like social structure, a class structure what is the role of america in the world? what is the role of race and ethnicity in american life? you could not get to first base to answer such questions without looking through some kind of the ideological lens. no be like to be called an ideologue these days it is

better to be a pragmatist bullshit. is better to have a system to interpret their world. which is to say he used it to see things he would not see without it. but he was not a dogmatic sectarian here splitter he used it and was able to change in response to the evidence to his own growth and changing events in change of the social structure. i am sorry. howard was an ideologue and the best kind. he was not a knee-jerk anything but a great thinker from who we are still learning. the last thing i want to say

is one of the less sense that comes most strongly to me from both my acquaintance with howard but also talking with his friends, he was a man who enjoyed life. and the capacity he had to keep his own hope alive for radical change in qualitative change and structural change in the america he loved, and ed joy in working four that kind of change is something he has transmitted not only to me but thousands of other people who think as he thought that it is kind of late for america but not too late. it is not too late to make this the kind of country we can be proud of. thank you. i will miss you, howard.

[applause] >> when most people here than a muhammed ali they think i hospitalized a rock by the death of brick i a made medicines six. but in 1966 he caused an absolute outrage in the media when he petition for exemption of military service in vietnam than once denied he refused to be drafted. of a result of his protest his title was revoked and sentenced to a five-year prison term and the federal penitentiary parker his battle with the u.s. supreme court was not reversed until 1971. 1966 he spoke in the middle kentucky in his hometown about the reasons why he would fight in the ring but not be a number reading the

words of mohammed all the and the voices of the people's history is damian smith. [applause] think you. i am very nervous. i have heard the phrase stand on the shoulders of a job as but they don't tell you sometimes when you were on the shoulders there are other giants next you standing on the same soldiers -- shoulders you have to bear with me i am a little terrified. real quick. my favorite thing about mohammad ali is i love people who don't know their place as a little kid the adults says you don't know your place. that is good. none of us know our place. this man did not be there.

he talked fast i will try to slow it down. bear with me. mahal the dolly -- muhammed ali. >> why should they ask me to put on a uniform go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in vietnam people when the group people on the weevil are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights and no. i am not going 10,000 miles from home to murder and vernon other poor nations simply to continue the domination of white slave masters. this is the day when such evil must come to an end. i have been warned that such a stand will cost me millions of dollars. but i said once and i will say again, the real enemy of my people is year.

i will not disgrace my religion, my people, or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice freedom and equality. if i thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they would not have to draft me i would join tomorrow. i have nothing to lose by standing up for my believes so i will go to jail. so what? we have been in jail for years. [applause] >> we have a speaker and a poet and anna's revolution bringing as home for a few have been amazingly patience. round of applause for all speakers and performers to

night. you have been amazing. [applause] the next speaker nine years in the u.s. military 13 months in iraq then another nine months a wall and one of authors of the new organize saying manual for civilians called civilian ally and is said d.c. chair of the iraq veterans against the war. he heads the national board excuse me. that is why northrop grumman wants to get here to have all of the national stuff here. geoffrey millard. [applause] >> i feel about awkward speaking about some a legends have been on this stage tonight but i think

probably a lot of people out there a to is this young guy with a mohawk? i was at a hard core pond pond -- pump that show that i am sure those people thought who is this old guy with the mohawk? [laughter] but when i first met howard we're going to reinvent, i went to the opening of a book signing and it was the opening of the book and the launch and my good friend was set to speak at the opening and we found out howard would be there and i found my way to the stage to speak and allow was speaking i was passed and notes also amy goodman fan fed she is stuck in traffic keep talking until she comes in

then introduce her. [laughter] so what became war started as a two minutes on to the stage became half-hour then i saw her walking to the stage with a lot of favors from boeing probably working mil hole way over its and when howard got up to speak he said what else i will say after hearing from someone who served in iraq and gave us one hour lecture that was brilliant. that is the first day that i met him. i have known his work for a long time before that. i was a soldier seven years ago today and was just a soldier with a camouflage jacket and a bus ticket going to a peace march today i am the national board of directors of.

[applause] i have heard a lot of people mentioned freedom and and i think freedom i think of the poet and a loss of third janice joplin who said three down at is just another word for nothing left to lose and in 2006 i got to the point* i had nothing left to lose. i went to iraq they took my health, my friends in fighting against the warsaw i began to use my a military id to go base to base and organized year resistors. reorganize veterans and gis to resist the occupation of afghanistan. i want to tell two quick stories but first when i decided to go awol was a tough decision for me. i was thinking about it for a long time when the people i called was howard and i asked him what i should do or what he thought i should

do. he said i don't know. then he told me the story of how he had bombed france and he really didn't see anything that he got from an reit talked about my experience and his experience at the end he said you do what you think is right. on the day or i was officially marked a wall for the first time i was in fort hood washington on the day ricky was turning himself and i was working on that campaign then i worked tirelessly provided i thought was right and i continue that is the work of howard and the legacy. it is not as wonderful as the books but the living stories behind them. the words and the books of not mean anything if they're not people out there doing that work. [applause] but my last story because i do think the book is

important and you should buy it here at the bookstore because of write-downs of four independent bookstores, we will lose them. if every person here bought a book before they left it would really help said teaching for change a bookstore. every friday picked up at least one book. but there is no limit. okay? i was in iraq and worked for a general and describe my time there as 90% what will i do? a 10% what will i do? and in that 90% of fordham i read a lot of bucks when i found they would just piss-off my chain of command like socialism, communism anything like to get my hands on that pissed off might chain of command. one of those was a people's history of the united states. i did not just read it and every time howard had mentioned any number i

highlighted it and every time he mentioned a name i highlighted in yellow and went to the internet and today barker research and tended to that spot. every time he mentioned a theme or idea it was highlighted in red and why that was important. this took a lot of time a couple of months in iraq but i have the time but then i went through and started to order every book i could phone the bibliography and when they showed this book to howard, the look on his face was amazing but that was a day were i first met him and the day i got to see him speak. there is a picture if you scroll to my blog post about his passing which was you will see myself and jose sitting behind him with the jaws on the ground in amazement we could sit there

and listen to him speak in person. i was a little bit thinner and have more hair and was many years ago, but the work we do now is still the same and largely because of the work he did. thank him for that. this is the second time i got to speak at a memorial for one of my heroes. the first was for delaware ban when he died i thought should i wear a suit then i a changed at the last minute into a t-shirt because i thought that is what he would want it so instead of wearing a collar shirt i thought to read this sure because i knew of howard word here he would be happier that way. i will show you the book then i will step off this is my prized possession.

[laughter] [applause] i want to thank andy shallal for putting this on from busboys sample exam without that there were not be a place like this for us to come. thank you. [applause] >> if you do not know geoff millard he does that even take it as a mylar package in his house so the fact the ticket outside and exposed it to the elements come i think that is attributed to howard and also same people you have to show people that book that is the craziest thing i have never seen. [laughter] with this is great i am just glad that people who were watching live on busboys and poets.com i've got to see that.

before i announce the next person in this stretch of want to announce the kitchen is open. please have dinner. that is how you support the amazing space and be kind to your sir. howard was a good tipper. [laughter] i will put that out there. they depend on your. order well and i also want to give a slight at its we have some poetry, anna's revolution but stick around we will also have closing comments from the agitated himself, andy shallal that would be important for him to say a couple of last words. next we have one of the founders of d.c. public again stores along with the festival's reading poetry from the lucille clifton recently departed, sarah

browning. [applause] >> what an honor to be here. with this incredible line up today remembering howard zinn. i will start with his words. my new middle age reading glasses. whenever a become discouraged the which is on alternate tuesdays between 3:00 and 4:00 i lift my spirits by remembering the artists are on our side. those poets and painters singers and musicians and novelist and playwrights to speak to the world in a way that is impervious because they wage the battle of justice in a sphere that is unreachable by the jonas of

ordinary political discourse. and it will be these voices of resistance and hope and vision that we will be featuring at the poetry festival coming up been just three short weeks i hear the cheering section. [applause] because i learned from howard and some money for bears about organizing it will pass around post cards for the poetry festival i help you all join us. it will be an incredible four days of poetry, a discussion, youth voices and poetry in the streets. [applause] one of the voices we had hoped to feature that was silenced to soon, taken from us was the great poet lucille clifton.

she was born to working-class family in buffalo new york 1936. the first member of her family to go to high school. i will read to poems. one is called grief. i want to take a moment to grieve because that is part of our human experience and we have to take a moment. i want to grieve the loss of howard zinn, lucille clifton extraordinary poet and activist dennis from south africa that we lost in december, three incredible lives and voices in the last two months. grief. began with the pain on the grass the bore the weight of adam his broken rib mending

into even imagine the original bleeding at the moaning and dell lamentation from that guard in through fields of sound to hear and grieve for the upright animals and to grieve for the horizontal world. pause for the human animal in the coat of many colors. plus for the myth of america. pause for the myth of america. pause for the girl with 12 fingers who never learned to cry a enough for anything that mattered, not enough for the fear or for the loss not enough for the history, not enough for the

disregarded planet not enough for the grass. then in a guarded of regret with time and grief and pain grief for the grass that is older than at of grief for what is born human and the grief for what is not. [applause] and the second poem we're also here to celebrate is called blessed the boats and is the title palm of but selection i am reading from by lucille clifton and available for sale in the teaching for a change a bookstore at different. please do night pick up your the seal clifton she will

comfort and challenge and in light in your soul. blessing the boats made the tide that is entering even now well lip of our understanding carry out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it. certain that it will love your back me you open your eyes to water waiting for ever and may you did your innocence sale through this to that. lucille clifton, ed howard zinn, thank you. [applause]

>> we have music now if you heard them before you know, you want to hear them again. anna's revolution are you still in the house? there you go. anna's revolution than closing words by mr. andy shallal then you know, what? we have to go out and make history after that. ladies and gentlemen, and everyone else, anna's revlution. >> calum about our mc this evening? what a wonderful guy. [applause] we came to this area just after september 11 just before september 11 and our first response was two seeing these three words in been veribanc in hebrew and

english because it was clear to us from the network coverage the rite aid was on the wall. we saw the flex to raved over the overpasses and we saw the new bid ramada inn graffiti and renew it was up to the piece and justice committee to assert those words into the discussion following and when we were asked to seeing the song at the first speech road and ask to where white but instead rewrote the words of undershirts and took off for the rally and since then focused on this sure has traveled around the world and testimony of wanting people wanting to stand behind these words and peace so please saying it with us. >> we're also