The People's Historian Speaks!

When dealing with history, there are really two Americas. There is the perpetually institutionalized American mythology, teeming with assorted mainstream heroes like Christopher Columbus and Buffalo Bill. Meanwhile, the other America vibrates between the lines, studded with a cast of less-mentioned figures whose sacrifices defined and upheld those sacred American principles so often taken for granted ––principles like democracy, equality, justice and independence. This other America is the domain of acclaimed historian Howard Zinn. Controversial? Certainly. But would we want it any other way?

With some 25 books to his credit, Zinn recently embarked on his latest venture, the forthcoming History Channel documentary, The People Speak, featuring appearances by Josh Brolin, Sandra Oh and Bob Dylan, to name a few. If there's a theme to the film, it might best be summed up with one of its promotional teasers: "Democracy is not a spectator sport." Or as Zinn explained, "People have power. Very often they don't know it."

Based on Zinn's quintessential book, A People's History of the United States, and its companion anthology, Voices of a People's History of the United States, this important documentary aims to empower viewers by celebrating the dissidents and lesser-known movers and shakers of American history who shaped the nation by challenging the powers that be. Recently in Massachusetts, Zinn took some time to talk with Tonic about The People Speak, the importance of civil liberties, and the need for active participation in the nation's ongoing evolution.

Tonic: How are you? What's new and exciting?

Zinn: I'm fine. I'm out here on sort of a semi-vacation on Cape Cod. It's a beautiful spot. I'm here with water all around –– the ocean on one side, the bay on another. On Saturday night we had our first screening in Wellfleet of The People Speak.

Tonic: How was it received?

Zinn: We had a great reception. It was held in the new summer theater here which holds 200 people, and the place was packed. There's a great demand for it. The people that saw it came away very fired up and enthusiastic.

Tonic: That's great news, Howard. Has the History Channel set a date yet for the first airing?

Zinn: The exact date is not yet announced, but it's sometime in December.

Tonic: What role did you play in the film beyond the creative aspect? Didn't you narrate?

Zinn: Yeah, I'm sort of on camera at the beginning and at the end. Then in-between I do voice-overs, introducing the various readings by the various actors. So I guess I'm the narrator.

Tonic: How were the books adapted to the screen? The way it's billed, The People Speak contains readings, plus music and poetry.

Tonic: Well, it's historical documents. For example, we have Viggo Mortensen reading Las Casas' account of the cruelties that Columbus visited on the Indians. We have Marisa Tomei reading a New England mill girl's recollection of her first strike.

We have Morgan Freeman reading a speech that Frederick Douglass made when addressing an anti-slavery meeting and he's asking, "What is a black man doing celebrating the 4th of July?" We have Danny Glover reading a poem by Langston Hughes in the early 1930s as Roosevelt came into office. We have Sean Penn reading an angry statement by Kevin Tillman, whose brother was killed by so-called "friendly fire" in Afghanistan. And then we have music: Bruce Springsteen singing "This Land Is Your Land," Eddy Vedder singing "Masters of War," Bob Dylan singing "Do Re Mi," John Legend singing "No More Auction Block For Me." So it's a combination of music and poetry and historical documents.

Tonic: What's the importance of this documentary?

Zinn: The People Speak is a clarion call for people to become involved. We're giving examples throughout history of people who did not wait for the president or Congress to set things right. People protested against war. People protested against terrible economic conditions. The idea of The People Speak is to remind people in the United States that we have always needed people who struggled and fought for change. So what we're trying to do is to recall that tradition of protest and encourage people to become active, because historically, whenever there have been serious problems, the government only acted when it was pushed by citizens' movements.

Tonic: Has effecting social change always been a challenge in this country?

Zinn: Yeah, always. It was a long struggle for the anti-slavery movement. They started out in the 1830s with a handful of people and they struggled for 30 years to build a national movement against slavery. If not for that national movement, we wouldn't have had the Emancipation Proclamation or the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. And of course it was a long struggle for working people to get the eight-hour day. Workers have always had to struggle and go on strike to better their conditions.

Tonic: And the struggle is still going on. It's a continuous process.

Zinn: It's still going on. Immigrant workers very often face the same kind of sweatshop conditions in factories that people faced in New York at the beginning of the 20th Century. And of course, it's still true of migrant farm laborers that have to deal with very low wages and difficult conditions. It's not far from The Grapes of Wrath of the 1930s.

Tonic: The people who struggled and fought the system to create change –– are these the heroes of our country?

Zinn: Kids go to school and they're confronted with military heroes. You know, "Andrew Jackson: Great military hero," or "Theodore Roosevelt: Great military hero." But to us, they are not heroes at all. To us, the heroes are the Cherokee Indians who resisted Andrew Jackson when he sent the army to remove them from their homeland. Our hero is not somebody like Theodore Roosevelt, who congratulated an American general for committing a massacre of Filipinos. Rather, our hero is Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt. Or Helen Keller, who opposed World War I. Abraham Lincoln is not our hero; he only responded to people who were heroes, people like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

Tonic: These people made huge sacrifices to exercise and protect our civil liberties. But in these times, our rights are eroding ever so rapidly. Is there a danger with this?

Zinn: If we don't protect our civil liberties, we will become a silenced people. Civil liberties protect our right to speak and to protest. Without them, we're going to have a totalitarian government. During wartime or when there's some threat, whether real or imagined, in that hysteria of fear, people will very often yield to the deprivation of their liberties, and that's a dangerous thing to do.

Tonic: Why isn't the protection of civil liberties more important to the people?

Zinn: Because they've been inveigled into thinking that there's some terrible threat out there, and when you have a threat out there, you have to give up your freedom for security. But of course, these threats are very often artificial. It was Communism during the Cold War. It's terrorism today. Fear is used by the people in authority to distort the thinking of the citizenry to immobilize them.

Tonic: As a historian, you've spent a lot of time covering underrepresented history. Why is this important?

Zinn: Because if you don't tell the history of ordinary people, how they resisted authority, and how they struggled for their rights, then what you're left with is the history of authority, of presidents and congresses. It makes you think that everything depends on the people on top, and that all you have to do is go to the polls every four years. So it's important to know the history of all those people who have battled against authority and to show that when injustices were corrected, they were corrected not by the people on top, but by people who built up social movements, whether it was the anti-slavery movement, the anti-war movement, or the labor movement. It's a matter of empowering, of making people feel their own power. One of our jobs in bringing the people's history forward is to show people that they do have power.

Tonic: How does the idea of social movements translate to the Internet age?

Zinn: Well, the important thing about the Internet is it creates the possibility of organizing movements despite the control of the major institutions by wealth. There's a force of democracy in the Internet that can give people the information that they will not get in the major media –– and also to summon them to act. The Internet was used on the eve of the war in Iraq to organize a worldwide demonstration on February 15, 2003. It was used to help Obama with his presidential campaign. The Internet has great possibilities. It is a very important organizing and informational tool.

Tonic: What would the founding fathers say if they could drop in for a day?

Zinn: [Laughs] We have to remember that the founding fathers were an economic elite who kept power and wealth unto themselves. They wouldn't be surprised at the concentration of power in Washington D.C., but they'd be surprised at how far it has gone and how crass it has been. And I think they'd be surprised at the crudeness of thinking. The founding fathers were very smart and very eloquent. Compare the language used in their statements and letters with the language you hear in the halls of Congress or with politicians today. They would think we are ruled by a bunch of ignoramuses [laughter]. But basically the kind of society we live in –– a society dominated by wealth –– is the kind of society created by the founding fathers.

Tonic: Matt Damon is reading the Declaration of Independence in The People Speak. In an AP interview he said our loyalties should be for this document rather than whichever government is currently in power. Why is this document still vital?

Zinn: The Declaration of Independence is especially important because it makes it clear that government is an artificial creation, set up by the people to achieve certain ends: equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When the government becomes destructive of those ends, then it doesn't deserve to exist, and people have the right to alter or abolish it. The Declaration of Independence is sort of the "Manifesto for Democracy."

Tonic: What is the most important thing for the next generation to think about?

Zinn: To not simply accept what leaders and the media are saying, but to think for themselves and look for alternative sources of information. To develop a world view, go to the Internet and see what foreign newspapers are saying. To be willing to look at other countries and see how far ahead of us some of them are. Most leading industrial countries have done away with the death penalty. Most have health plans far superior to ours. Most have infant mortality rates which are much better than ours. We need to get away from the idea that our country is number one. The only thing we're number one at is military power, and that's nothing to be proud of. So I think it's important for young people to begin thinking for themselves, to begin thinking globally, to look for alternative sources of information, and to understand that they have the power to change things.

Tonic: A perfect punctuation to this interview.

Zinn: In that case, let's end the interview [laughs].

Tonic: Sounds good. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Zinn: No, I think I've said more than I should have.

Tonic: Don't worry, we'll trim out anything incriminating [laughs]. Congratulations on "The People Speak," Howard. We're really looking forward to it.

Photos by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.