[APPLAUSE] Thanks, everyone, for coming. This is a very exciting
evening for us, and a really exciting
collaboration. We're so honored to be
working with Lincoln Center and the amazing team
of Giordana, Viviana, Mirra, the core team, and all the
amazing technical support and staff at Lincoln Center
who have made tonight's event possible, but also this great
collaboration with the High School for Arts,
Imagination, and Inquiry. And we're so thrilled to
have so many people here from the school, to have
Fatou as part of our cast, and to know that
this is all working towards this
performance on May 19th. The students at the High
School for Arts, Imagination, and Inquiry are very lucky. They've got great teachers. We've been working
with Benjamin. We've been working
with Geoffrey. And the whole staff and
faculty over at the school are really remarkable. And they're spending
a whole year working with the
material of, Voices of a People's History
of the United States, and with Howard's book, A
People's History of the United States. And this really was our vision
when Howard and I started out on this journey, now maybe
around 13, 14 years ago, and certainly a
journey that Howard had started so many years earlier-- 35 years ago to the publication
of A People's History of the United States,
but even longer when you consider all the
years of work and organizing and activism that led up to
him writing that book in 1980. And it really was that idea. Howard was so
committed to the idea of making these
resources of hope that you'll hear
on stage tonight so beautifully performed,
available to a new generation of people. And that's why he wanted to
dedicate our book, Voices of a People's History
of the United States, the rebel voices of
the coming generation. So that's really
the spirit in which we do this performance tonight. I also want to just make a
couple of quick announcements and a few more thank you's. There are books over here
from Haymarket Books-- independent, non-profit,
book publisher that I've had the privilege
to work with over the last 15 years now. So you can get books,
including Voices of a People's History of the
United States, 10th anniversary edition. You can also get
a book published by Viggo Mortensen, who-- I hope everyone had
a chance to hear him this morning on Democracy Now. But if you didn't, please do
go listen to Democracy Now and their wonderful interview
with him this morning where he talked about his
publishing house, Perceval Press, and the very
important work he's doing. He's just relaunched--
well, he's launched a new edition of a book
first published 12 years ago called, Twilight of Empire. I had the great privilege
of writing an introduction to the new edition of
that book, which has just come out-- an updated edition,
along with another introduction by Dennis Kucinich. We're launching that
book tomorrow night at McNally Jackson,
for those of you who can come down at seven
o'clock tomorrow night. There's flyers for that
event at the Haymarket table, also here at this
information desk. Viggo's also going to be
signing copies of that book after the event, and I'm happy
to sign copies of Voices. I also want to let people know
that one of the people you'll hear from tonight, Viggo,
will be reading Joe Hill, who 100 years ago, November
19th, the great labor troubadour, songwriter,
poet of the labor movement of this country,
and really someone whose songs have been
embraced around the world, was killed by the
State of Utah-- assassinated by firing squad. And on November 20th
at the New School, we're going to do an event to
honor Joe Hill and performances by a number of people,
including some of the people who are on stage tonight-- Allison, Brian, Susan. So I hope you'll check
out that event as well. And then just finally I
want to thank, in addition to Samantha, who is helping
with the book sales, Matt Covey, and Brian-- sorry, Matt Covey. I already mentioned Brian Jones. Brenda Coughlin
and Dan Coughlin, who've been part of
The Voice of a People's History, of the organization,
and Anna Stroud. All of these people
have been vital to us being able to do this work
over the last 10 years, and be able to do this
performance tonight. So with that, I really hope
you have a wonderful show. And I want to
welcome to this stage the remarkable
partners in crime who we have here with us tonight,
starting with Susan Pourfar-- [APPLAUSE] --Brian Jones, Allison Moorer,
Hayes Carll, Fatou Thiam, Viggo Mortensen,
Kathleen Chalfant, Stew, Peter Sarsgaard,
and Teddy Thompson. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] All right. We're all here, right? Stew, we're here? All right. Peace. OK. So we'll begin tonight with
Sam Cooke, his remarkable song, penned in 1964, "A
Change is Gonna Come." [MUSIC - ALLISON MOORER, "A
CHANGE IS GONNA COME"] (SINGING) I was born by
the river, in a little tent. Oh and just like that river,
I've been running ever since. It's been a long-- a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come. Oh yes it will. It's been too hard living,
but I'm afraid to die. Cause I don't know what's
up there, beyond the sky. It's been a long,
a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come. Oh yes it will. Then I go to my brother, and I
say, brother, help me please. But he winds up knocking
me back down to my knees. Oh! There have been
times when I thought I couldn't last for long. But now I think I'm
able to carry on. It's been a long,
a long time coming, but I know a change gonna come. Oh, yes it will. It's been a long-- a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come. Oh, yes it will. [APPLAUSE] In recent years, the idealized
and romanticized picture of Christopher Columbus
has been reconsidered. The evidence for
this revised view comes in part from
Bartolome de las Casas, who witnessed the consequences
of Columbus's conquest, which he describes in the following
passages, first published in 1542. "The Indies were discovered
in the year 1,492. 49 years have passed since
the first settlers penetrated the land, the first being
the large and most happy isle called Hispaniola, perhaps the
most densely populated place in the world. There must be close to 200
leagues of land on this island, and all the land
so far discovered is a beehive of people. It is as though God had
crowded into these lands the great majority of mankind. And of all the infinite
universe of humanity, the people are the most
guileless, the most devoid of wickedness and
duplicity, the most obedient and faithful to
their native masters, and to the Spanish
Christians, whom they serve. And because they are
so weak and complacent, they are less able to
endure heavy labor, and soon die of no
matter what malady. Yet into this sheep-fold, into
this land of meek outcasts, there came some Spaniards
who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts,
wolves, tigers, or lions that had been
starved for many days-- killing, terrorizing,
afflicting, torturing, and destroying the
native peoples, doing all this
with the strangest and most varied new methods
of cruelty never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree
that this island of Hispaniola, once so populous, having a
population that I estimated to be more than three
millions, has now a population of barely 200 persons. Their reason for
killing and destroying such an infinite
number of souls is that the Christians have
an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold and
to swell themselves with riches in a
very brief time, and thus rise to
a highest state, disproportionate
to their merits. It should be kept in mind
that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest
ever seen in the world, is the cause of
their villainies. And also those lands are
so rich and felicitous, the native peoples so meek and
patient, so easy to subject, that our Spaniards have no
more consideration for them than beasts. No, for thanks be to God,
they have treated beast with some respect. I should say instead
like excrement on the public squares. The Indians began to seek ways
to throw the Christians out of their lands. They took up arms, but
their weapons were very weak and have little service
and offense, and still less in defense. The Christians, with their
horses and swords and pikes, began to carry out massacres and
strange cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and
spared neither the children nor the aged, nor pregnant
women nor women in child-bed, not only stabbing them
and dismembering them, but cutting them to pieces
as if dealing with sheep in the slaughterhouse. They made some low, wide gallows
on which the hanged victim's feet almost touch the
ground, stringing up people in lots of 13, in memory
of our Redeemer and his Twelve Apostles, then set fire
to wood at their feet, and thus burned them alive. When tied to the stake, the
cacique, a very important noble, was told by
a Franciscan friar about the God of the Christians
and the articles of faith. And he was told what he could
do in the brief time that remained to him in order to
be saved and go to Heaven. The cacique, who had
never heard any of this before, and was told he could
go to Hell if he did not adopt the Christian faith, he
would suffer eternal torment, asked the Franciscan friar if
Christians all went to Heaven? When told that they did, he said
he would prefer to go to Hell." [APPLAUSE] In 1851, the black
abolitionist and former slave, Sojourner Truth spoke to
a gathering of feminists in Akron, Ohio. Her speech, only a
few minutes long, was a landmark moment in
feminist and abolitionist history. "Well, children, where
there's so much racket, there must be something
out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes
of the South and the woman at the North all talking
about rights, the white man will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this
here talking about? The men over there
says that women need to be helped into
carriages, lifted over ditches, and have the blessed
place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into
carriages, or over mud puddles, or give me any best place. Ain't I woman? Look at me. Look at my arms. I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns, and no men could head me. Ain't I woman? I could work as
much, and eat as much as men, when I could get it,
and bear the lash as well. Ain't I woman? I have borne 13 children
and seen most all sold off to slavery. And when I cried out
with my mother's grief, nothin' but Jesus heard me. Ain't I woman? Then they talk about
this thing in the head. What's this they call it? Intellect, that's it, honey. What's that got to do with
women's right or Negroes right? If my cup won't hold but a
pint, and yours holds a quarter, wouldn't you be mean not to let
me have my little half measure full. Then that little man in
black there, he says, women can't have as
much right as men cause Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Men had nothing to do with him. If the first woman God
ever made was strong enough to turn the world
upside down all alone, these women together ought to
be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again. Now this is asking to do it. The men better let them." [APPLAUSE] July 4th is held up as a
day to celebrate the struggle for freedom and independence. But the great abolitionist
Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave,
dared to challenge the exaltation of the holiday. Here is part of his
remarkable address in 19-- sorry, in 1852 to the Rochester
Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. "Friends and
fellow citizens, he who could address this audience
without a quailing sensation has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember
ever to have appeared as a speaker before
any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater
distrust of my ability than I do this day. A feeling has crept over
me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my
limited powers of speech. Fellow citizens, pardon me. Allow me to ask, why am I
called upon to speak here today? What have I, or
those I represent, to do with your
national independence? Are the great principles
of political freedom and of natural justice
embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? And am I therefore called upon
to bring our humble offering to the national altar and
to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude
for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would, to God, both for
your sakes and ours, that an affirmative
answer could truthfully be returned to these questions. Then would my task be light,
my burden easy and delightful. But such is not the
state of the case. I say it with a sad sense
of the disparity between us. I am not included
within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high independence
only reveals the immeasurable
distance between us. The blessings in which
you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common the
rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and
independence bequeathed by your fathers is
shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought
light and healing to you has brought stripes
and death to me. This 4th or July
is yours, not mine. At a time like this,
scorching irony, not convincing
argument is needed. Oh, have I the ability, and
could reach the nation's ear, I would, today, pour
out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting
reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke, for it is not
light that is needed, but fire. It is not the gentle
shower but thunder. We need the storm, the
whirlwind, and the earthquake. The conscience of the
nation must be roused, the propriety of the
nation must be startled. The hypocrisy of the
nation must be exposed, and its crimes
against God and man must be proclaimed
and denounced. What, to the American
slave, is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to
him, more than all other days of the year, the gross
injustice and cruelty to which he is the
constant victim. To him, your
celebration is a sham. Your boasted liberty
and unholy license, your national greatness,
swelling vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are
empty and heartless, your denunciations of tyrants,
brass-fronted impudence, your shouts of
liberty and equality, hollow mockery, your
prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings
with all your religious parade and solemnity are to
him, mere bombast, fraud, deception,
impiety, and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover
up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the
earth guilty of practices more bloody and shocking than
are the people of the United States at this very hour. Go where you may,
search where you will. Roam through all the monarchies
and despotism of the old world, travel through South America,
search out every abuse. And when you have
found the last, lay your facts by the side
of the everyday practices of this nation, and
you will say, with me, that for revolting barbarity
and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without rival." [APPLAUSE] On October 16, 1859, John
Brown and nearly two dozen slaves seized the
armory at Harper's Ferry in West Virginia, hoping
to use its massive arsenal in the struggle to end slavery. Captured and brought to
trial in nearby Charlestown, Brown was found
guilty of treason. And one month for his execution
he addressed a courtroom in Charleston, West Virginia. "I have, if it may please
the court, a few words to say. In the first place, I
deny everything but what I have all along admitted-- the design on my part
to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have
made a thing of that matter, as I did last winter
when I went to Missouri and there took slaves
without the snapping of a gun on either side, move
them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I'd have designed to do the same
thing again on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend to murder
or treason or the destruction of property or to
make insurrection. I have another objection. And that is, it is unjust that
I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in
the matter, in which I admit has been fairly proved,
had I so interfered on behalf of the rich, the
powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or on
behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother,
sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and
suffered and sacrificed, would that I would have done
this in fair interference, it would have been all right. And every man in
this court would have deemed it an act worthy of
reward, rather than punishment. This court acknowledges,
and I suppose the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed
here, which I suppose to be the Bible, or
at least the New Testament. And that teaches me
that whatsoever I would do, whatsoever
with that man do should-- whatsoever I would that
man should do unto me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me
further, remember them that are in bonds,
as bound with them. I endeavor to act
upon that instruction. I say, I am yet too young
to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to
have interfered as I have done, as I've
always freely admitted to that I have done, in
behalf of his despised poor, was not wrong. It was right! Now if it is deemed necessary
that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance
of ends of justice and mingle my blood further
with the blood of my children and with the blood of
millions in this slave country whose rights are
disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust
enactments, I submit. So let it be done." [APPLAUSE] In 1872, Susan
B Anthony was one of 14 women who
defied the law to cast a ballot in the
presidential election. She was arrested for
quote, "knowingly voting without having a
lawful right to vote," and later was found guilty. When her lawyer
appealed the verdict, she addressed the
court in response to a question from the judge. "Has the prisoner anything
to say why sentence shall not be pronounced?" "Yes, your Honor, I
have many things to say. For in your ordered
verdict of guilty you have trampled underfoot
every vital principle of our government-- my natural rights, my civil
rights, my political rights, my judicial rights
are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental
privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of
a citizen to that of a subject, and not only myself
individually but all of my sex are, by your honor's verdict,
doomed to political subjection under this so-called
republican form of government." "The court cannot listen
to a rehearsal of argument, which the prisoner's council
has already consumed three hours in presenting." "May it please, your Honor. I am not arguing the question,
but simply stating the reasons why sentence cannot, in justice,
be pronounced against me. Your denial of my
citizen's right to vote is the denial of my
right of consent as one of the governed, the
denial of my right to representation as one of
a tax, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of
my peers as an offender against the law." "The court cannot allow
the prisoner to go on." "But your Honor will not
deny me this one and only poor privilege of protest against
this high-handed outrage upon my citizens' rights. May it please the
court to remember that since the day of
my arrest last November, this is the first time
that either myself or any member of my
disenfranchised class has been allowed a word
of defense against judge." "The prisoner must sit down. The court cannot allow it." "Of all my prosecutors, from
the corner grocery politician who entered the complaint,
to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District
Attorney, district judge, your honor on the bench,
not one is my peer, but each and all are my
political sovereigns. And had your Honor submitted
my case to the jury, as was clearly your
duty, even then I should have had just
cause of protest, for not one of those
men was my peer, but each and every one of them
was my political superior." "The court must
insist, the prisoner has been tried according to
the established forms of law." "Yes, your Honor, but by
forms of law made by men, interpreted by men, administered
by men, in favor of men and against women. But yesterday, the same
man-made forms of law declared it a crime, punishable
by $1,000 fine and six months imprisonment to give a cup of
cold water, a crust of bread, or a night's shelter
to a panting fugitive tracking his way to Canada. And every man or
woman in whose veins coursed a drop of
human sympathy, violated that wicked law,
reckless of consequences and was justified in doing so. As then the slaves who got
their freedom had to take it over or under or through, the
unjust forms of law, precisely so now must women take
it, to get a right to a voice in this government. And I have taken
mine and I intend to take it at every turn." "All right. The court orders the
prisoner to sit down. It will not allow another word." "When I was brought
before your Honor for trial, I hoped for a broad and
liberal interpretation of the Constitution and
its recent amendments. But failing to get this,
I mean, failing even to get a trial by a
jury not of my peers, I ask not leniency at
your hands, but rather the full rigors of the law." "OK. The court must insist-- the sentence of the court is
that you pay a fine of $100 and the costs of
the prosecution." "May it please your
Honor, I will never pay a dollar of
your unjust debt. All the stock in trade
I possess is a debt of $10,000 incurred
by publishing my paper, The Revolution,
the sole object of which was to educate all women to
do precisely as I have done. And I will work on
with might and main to pay every dollar
of that honest debt. But not a penny shall
go to this unjust claim. And I shall earnestly
and persistently continue to urge all women,
in the practical recognition of the old revolutionary
maxim, 'resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." [APPLAUSE] In, The Souls of Black
Folk, the black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois stated prophetically
that the problem of the 20th century is the problem
of the color line. Here Stew presents a selection
of this classic text. "Between me and
the other world, there is an ever unasked
question, unasked by some through feelings of delicacy,
by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All nevertheless,
flutter around it. They approach me in
half-hesitant sorts of ways, I, me curiously,
or compassionately. And then instead
of saying directly, how does it feel to be
a problem, they say, I know an excellent
colored man in my town. Or do not these southern
outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile
or am interested or reduce the
boiling to a simmer as the occasion may require
to the real question. How does it feel
to be a problem? I seldom answer a word. I seldom answer a word. And yet, being a problem
is a strange experience. It's a peculiar sensation,
this double consciousness, this sense of always
looking at oneself through the eyes of others,
of measuring one's soul by the tape of a
world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels this two-ness,
an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two
unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark
body whose dogged strength alone keeps it from
being torn asunder. Why did God make me an
outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The history of
the American Negro is the history of this
strife, this longing to attain
self-conscious manhood, to merge his double-self
into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes
neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America
for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach
his Negro sold in a flood of white
Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has
a message for the world. He simply wishes to make
it possible for a man to be both a Negro
and an American, without being cursed and
spit upon by his fellows, and without having the
doors of opportunity closed roughly in its face. The nation has not yet
found peace from its sins. The nation has not yet
found peace from its sins. The freedom has
not yet found its-- the freed man has not yet found
freedom in his promised land. Whatever good may come
in these years of change, the shadow of a
deep disappointment rests upon the people." [APPLAUSE] The labor troubadour
Joe Hill was executed by the state of Utah on November
19th, 1915, 100 years ago, later this month. From his jail cell
in Utah, Hill wrote to Big Bill Haywood
in a telegram, "Don't waste time mourning. Organize," a line
that became a slogan of the US labor movement. On the eve of his execution,
he penned these words. "My will is easy to decide,
for there is nothing to divide. My kin don't need
to fuss and moan. Moss does not cling
to a rolling stone. My body? Oh, if I could
choose, I would want to ashes it reduce, and let
the merry breezes blow my dust to where some flowers grow. Perhaps some fading flower then
would come to life and bloom again. This is my last and final will. Good luck to all
of you, Joe Hill." [APPLAUSE] In our schools we're
taught about Helen Keller, the deaf and blind girl
who became a famous writer. But we rarely learn that she
was a socialist and agitator for labor rights. Here is the text of a speech she
delivered before the US entry into the First
World War in 1917. "To begin with, I
have a word to say to my good friends, the
editors and others who are moved to pity me. Some people are
grieved because they imagine I am in the hands
of unscrupulous persons who lead me astray and persuade
me to espouse unpopular causes. Now let it be known,
once and for all, that I do not want their pity. I would not change
places with one of them. I know what I am talking about. Let them remember that if I
cannot see the fire at the end of their cigarettes, neither can
they thread a needle in a dark. We are facing a grave
crisis in our national life. The few who profit from
the labor of the masses want to organize the
workers into an army which will protect the interests
of the capitalists. You are urged to
add to the heavy burdens you already
bear, the burden of a larger army and
many additional warships. It is in your power to refuse
to carry the artillery. You do not need to make a
great big noise about it. With the silence and dignity
of creators you can end wars. All you need to do to
bring about this stupendous revolution is to straighten
up and fold your arms. Congress is not preparing to
defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the
capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico,
South America, China, and the Philippines. Incidentally this preparation
will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines. Every modern war has had
its root in exploitation. The Civil War was
fought to decide whether the slave-holders
of the South or the capitalists of the
North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War
decided that the United States should exploit Cuba
and the Philippines. The present war is
to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, Turkey,
Persia, Egypt, India, China, and Africa. We are wetting our sword to
scare the victors into sharing the spoils with us. Now the workers are not
interested in the spoils. They will not get
any of them anyway. I think the workers
are the most unselfish of the children of men. They live and die for
other people's country, other people's sentiments,
other people's liberties, and other people's happiness. The kind of preparedness
the workers want is a reorganization
and reconstruction of their whole life, such
as never has been attempted by statesmen or governments. It is your duty to insist
upon radical measures. It is your business to see
that no worker is needlessly exposed to accident or disease. It is your business to make
them give you clean cities. It is your business to make
them pay you a living wage. It is your business to see that
the kind of preparedness that is carried into every
department in the nation is one in which
everyone has a chance to be well born, well
nourished, and rightly educated. Strike against war. For without you, no
battle can be fought. Strike against preparedness
that means death and misery to millions of people. Be not dumb, obedient slaves
in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army
of construction." [APPLAUSE] One of the most eloquent
voices against war was that of Eugene
Debs, the railroad union organizer and leader of the
Socialist Party from Indiana. On June 18, 1918, he
addressed a mass rally of workers in Canton,
Ohio, knowing very well that his words could
lead, as they did, to his arrest and imprisonment. After the speech,
the Supreme Court upheld unanimously a
10-year prison sentence for the words you hear now
that led to his arrest. "Sam Johnson declared that
patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. He must have had the Wall
Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes. For in every age it has been
the tyrant, the oppressor, and the exploiter who
has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism,
or religion, or both, to deceive and
overall the people. Every solitary one of these
aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers
claims to be an arch-patriot. Every one of them
insist that the war is being waged to make the
world safe for democracy. What humbug. What rot. What false premises. Wars throughout
history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages, when
feudal lords concluded there in large domains to increase
their power, their prestige, and their wealth, they
declared war on one another. But they themselves
did not go to war, any more than the modern feudal
lords, the barons of Wall Street, go to war. The feudal barons
of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of
the capitalists of our day, declared all wars, and
their miserable serfs fought all battles. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has
always declared the wars. The subject class has
always fought the battles. The master class has had all
to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class had nothing to gain and all to lose,
especially their lives. They have always
taught and trained you to believe it to be your
patriotic duty to go to war and have yourself
slaughtered at their command. But in all history of
the world, you the people have never had a voice
in declaring war. And strange as it
certainly appears, no war by any nation
in any age have been declared by the people. The working class, who fight all
battles, the working class, who make the supreme sacrifices, the
working class who freely shed their blood, furnish
their corpses, have never yet had a voice in
either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class
that invariably does both. They alone declare war. They alone make peace. Yours, not reason why,
yours but to do and die. That is their motto. And we object. On the part of the awakening
workers of the nation, if war is right, let it be
declared by the people." WOMAN: Yeah. [APPLAUSE] One of the best known
songs of the Depression era was written in 1932 by
EY "Yip" Harburg, the son of Jewish immigrants
from Russia, who lived not far from
here on the Lower East Side of New York, "Brother
Can You Spare a Dime" [MUSIC - ALLISON MOORER,
"BROTHER CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?"] (SINGING) Once I built
a railroad, made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a
railroad, now it's done. Brother can you spare a dime? Once I built a tower to the
sun, brick and rivet and lime. Once I built a
tower, now it's done. Brother can you spare a dime? Once in khaki suits,
gee, we looked swell, full of that Yankee Doodle Dum. Half a million boots went
slogging through hell, and I was the kid with the drum. Oh, say do you remember,
they called me Al. It was Al all the time. Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal. Brother can you spare a dime? [APPLAUSE] The economic
crisis of the 1930s led to a wave of union
organizing and strikes throughout the country. Vicky Starr was one
of many rank and file activists in the campaign
to organize unions in the meatpacking
factories of Chicago. "I ran away from
home at age 17. I had to because there
was not enough money to feed the family in 1933
during the Depression. I was doing housework for
$4 a week and I hated it. So Herb suggested that I
get a job in the stockyards. One of the ways to get
a job was to go down to the employment office. Every morning you got
there by 6:00, 6:30. There were just so many benches
and they'd all be filled early. They'd only need one,
maybe two people. This woman, Mrs. McCann,
Women's Hiring Director would look around for the
biggest and brawniest person. 'Have you had
experience," she asked? I said, 'Well, not
in the stockyards, but we used to butcher
our own hogs at home.' I carried this big steel and
that impressed Mrs. McCann. She hired me. In 1933, '34, we
worked six-hour shifts at $0.37 and a
1/2 cents an hour. We would have to work
at a high rate of speed. It was summer. It'd be so hot that
women used to pass out. The ladies room was
on the floor below, and I'd help carry these women
down almost vertical stairs into the bathroom. We started talking union. The thing that precipitated it
is that on the floor below they used to make hot dogs, and
one of the women in putting the meat into the chopper
got her fingers cut. There were no safety guards. Her fingers got
into the hot dogs and they were chopped off it. Was just horrible. Three of us colonizers had
a meeting during our break and decided this was the
time to have a stoppage. And we did. All six floors went on strike. We just stopped working
right inside the building, protesting the speed and
the unsafe conditions. We got the company to
put in safety devices. Soon after the work
stoppage, the supervisors were looking for the leaders,
because people were talking up the action. They found out who was
involved, and we were all fired. I was blacklisted. I got a job doing
housework again. It was just horrible. I just couldn't stand it. I'd rather go back and work
in a factory any day or night. A friend of mine who
had been laid off told me that she got
called back to work. Meanwhile she had
a job in an office and she didn't want to go
back to the stockyards, so she asked me if I
wanted to go in her place. She had used the
name, Helen Ellis. I went down to the stockyards
and it was the same department, exactly the same job, on the
floor where I'd been fired. But it was the afternoon and
Mrs. McCann wasn't there. Her assistant was. She told me that I would start
work the following afternoon. I got my hair cut really
short and hennaed. I thinned my eyebrows
and penciled them, wore a lot of lipstick
and painted my nails. I came in looking sharp and
not like a country girl. So I passed right
through, and I was hired as Helen Ellis on the same job. After several days
the floor lady, Mary, who was also Polish, came
around and said, OK, Helen, I know you're Stella. [LAUGHING] I won't say anything,
so just keep quiet. She knew I was
pro-union and I guess she was too, so I kept
the job as Helen Ellis until I got laid off. Later on I was blacklisted
under the name Ellis. [LAUGHING] If you even talked
union you were fired, so we actually had
secret meetings. Everybody had to vouch
for anyone that they brought to the meeting. We organized women's groups,
young women's groups. They liked to dance,
and I loved to dance. So we went dancing together,
and I talked to them about the union. The women were interested
after a while when they saw that the union could
actually win things for them, bread and butter things. When I look back now, I really
think we had a lot of guts. But I didn't even stop to
think about it at the time. It was something
that had to be done. We had a goal. That's what we felt had to
be done, and we did it." [APPLAUSE] Farmers driven off
their lands by the dust bowls of the 1930s traveled
throughout the country looking for ways to survive. The songwriter Woody Guthrie
described their plight in this song. [MUSIC - HAYES CARLL, "DO RE
MI"] (SINGING) Lots
of folks back East, they say is leaving almost every
day, beating that old dusty way to the California line. 'Cross the desert sands
they roll, getting out of that old dust bowl. They think they're
going to a sugar bowl, but here is what they find. Now the police at the
port of entry say, "You're number
14,000 for the day." If you ain't got that do-re-mi,
boys, if you got that do-re-mi, well you'd better go back to
beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee. California's a garden of Eden
a paradise to live or see. But believe it or not,
you won't find it so hot, if you got that do-re-mi. Well if you want to
buy a home or farm, that can't deal nobody
harm, but take your vacation by the mountains or the sea. Don't swap your
old cow for a car. You better stay
right where you are. Better take this
little tip from me. Cause I look through
the want ads every day. But the headlines
on the papers always say, oh, if you ain't
got that do-re-mi, boys, if you got that
do-re-mi, well you'd better go back to beautiful
Texas, or Oklahoma, Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee. California is a garden of Eden,
a paradise to live in or see. But believe it or not,
you won't find it so hot if you ain't got that do-re-mi. Ah, believe it or not,
you won't find it so hot, if you ain't got that do-re-mi. [APPLAUSE] Woody Guthrie's iconic song,
"This Land is Your Land," was written in response to
Irving Berlin's, "God Bless America." IT became a popular
anthem, but most versions, whether in school
textbooks or performed live tend to leave out
its most radical verses. Here is the complete version
of, "This Land is Your Land." [MUSIC - TEDDY THOMPSON, "THIS
LAND IS YOUR LAND"] (SINGING) This
land is your land, this land is my land, from
California to the New York island. From the Redwood Forest
to the Gulf stream waters, this land was made
for you and me. As I went walking that
ribbon of highway, I saw above me an
endless highway. I saw below, a golden valley. I said, this land was
made for you and me. I roamed and rambled and
followed my footsteps to the sparkling sands
of her diamond deserts. All around me a
voice was sounding, this land was made
for you and me. Was a high wall there that tried
to stop me, sign was painted, said, private property. But on the backside,
it didn't say nothing. Well, that's side was
made for you and me. When the sun came shining
and I was strolling, the wheat fields waving and
the dust clouds rolling, a voice was chanting,
the fog was lifting. It said, this land was
made for you and me. One sunny morning in the
shadow of the steeple, by the Relief Office
I saw my people. As they stood
hungry, I stood there wondering if this land
was made for you and me. If this land was
made for you and me, if this land was
made for you and me. [APPLAUSE] The Harlem Renaissance
of the 1920s and 30s produced an extraordinary group
of black writers and artists. One of the most
challenging of these voices was that of the poet
Langston Hughes. Here is his prophetic
1938 poem, "Kids Who Die." "This is for the kids
who die, black and white, for kids will die certainly. The old and the rich
will live on a while, as always, eating blood
and gold, letting kids die. Kids will die in the
swamps of Mississippi, organizing sharecroppers. Kids will die in the streets
of Chicago, organizing workers. Kids will die in the orange
groves of California, telling others to
get it together. Whites and Filipinos, Negroes
and Mexicans, all kinds of kids will die, who don't believe in
lies and bribes and contentment and a lousy peace. Of course the wise
and the learned who pen editorials in the papers
and the gentlemen with Dr. In front of the names,
black and white, who make surveys and write books
and who live on weaving words to smother the kids who die. And the sleazy courts and
the bribe-breaching police and the blood-loving generals
and the money-loving preachers will all raise their
hands against the kids who die, beating them with laws and
clubs and bayonets and bullets to frighten the people,
to frighten the people, to frighten the people. For the kids who
die are like iron in the blood of the people. And the old and rich don't
want the people to taste the iron of the kids who die. Don't want the people to
get wise on to their power, to believe in Angelo Herndon
or even get together. Listen, kids who
die, maybe now there will be no monument for you. I said, listen
kids who die, maybe now there will be no monument
for you, except in our hearts. But the day will come. You are sure yourselves
that day is coming, when the marching
feet of the masses will raise for you a living
monument of love and joy and laughter. And black hands and
white hands clasp as one, and a song reaches the sky,
the song of the life triumphant through the kids who die. [APPLAUSE] The songs of Minnesota-born
singer songwriter Robert Zimmerman, better
known as Bob Dylan, were an unmistakable part of
the radicalization of the 1960s and Vietnam era. His 1963 protest song,
"Masters of War," remains the strongest
indictment of war in American popular music. [MUSIC - HAYES CARLL AND ALLISON
MOORER, "MASTER OF WAR"] (SINGING) Come
you masters of war, you that build all the guns,
you that build the death planes, you that
build the big bombs, you that hide behind walls,
you that hid behind desks. I just want you to know, I
can see through your masks. (SINGING) You that never done
nothing, but build to destroy. you play with my wold,
like it's your little toy. You put a gun in my hand,
and you hide from my eyes. And you turn and run farther
when the fast bullets fly. You fasten the triggers
for the others to fire. Then you sit back and watch
as the death count gets high. You hide in your mansion,
as young people's blood flows out of their bodies
and is buried in the mud. You've thrown the
worst fear that could ever be hurled, a
fear to bring children into to this world. And for threatening my
baby, unborn and unnamed, you ain't worth the blood
that runs through your veins. So let me ask you one question. Is your money that good? Will it buy you forgiveness? Or do you think that it could? I think you will find, when
your death takes its toll, all the money you made will
never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die, and
your death will come soon. And I'll follow your casket
in the pale afternoon. And I'll watch as you're
lowered into your deathbed. And I'll stand over
your grave 'till I'm sure that you're dead. [APPLAUSE] Civil rights leaders urged
the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King not to speak out
against the Vietnam War. But in April of 1967 he went
to the Riverside Church, determined to do precisely that. "I come to this
magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience
leaves me no other choice. A time has come when
silence is betrayal. That time has come for us
in relation to Vietnam. Over the past two
years, as I have moved to break the
betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the
burnings of my own heart, many persons have questioned
me about the wisdom of my path. Why are you speaking
about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining
the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights
don't mix, they say. I deem it of signal importance
to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely
why I believe that the path from
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the church in
Montgomery, Alabama where I began my
pastorate leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight. There is at the outset a very
obvious and almost facile connection between
the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others
have been waging in America. A few years ago there
was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real
promise of hope for the poor, both black and white,
through the poverty program. There were experiments,
hopes, new beginnings. Then came the
buildup in Vietnam. And I watched this program
broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle
political plaything of a society gone mad on war. Perhaps a more tragic
recognition of reality took place when it
became clear to me that the war was doing
far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their
sons and their brothers and their husbands
to fight and to die in extraordinarily
high proportions, relative to the rest
of the population. We have repeatedly been
faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and
white boys on TV screens as they kill and die
together for a nation that has been unable to seat them
together in the same schools. So we watch them in
brutal solidarity, burning the huts
of a poor village, but we realize they
would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. As I have walked among the
desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that
Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer
them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction
that social change comes most meaningfully through
non-violent action. But they asked, and rightly
so, what about Vietnam? They asked, if our
own nation wasn't using massive doses of
violence to solve its problems, to bring about the
changes it wanted? Their questions hit home. And I knew that I could
never again raise my voice against the violence of the
oppressed in the ghettos, without having
first spoken clearly to the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today,
my own government. Now there is
something seductively tempting about stopping there,
and sending us all off in, for what in some circles
has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter
that struggle, but I wish to go on now and say
something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a
symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. And if we ignore this
sobering reality, we will find ourselves
organizing clear clergy and laymen concerned committees
for the next generation. They will be concerned
about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned
about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about
Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these
and a dozen other names, and attending
rallies without end, unless there is a significant
and profound change in American life and policy. So such thoughts take
us beyond Vietnam. I am convinced that
if we are to get on the right side of the world
revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical
revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift
from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers,
profit motives and property rights are considered more
important than people, the giant triplets of
racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable
of being conquered. True compassion is more than
flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an
edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution
of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring
contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation
it will look across the seas and see individual
capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money
in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to
take the profits out with no concern for the social
betterment of the countries, and say, this is not just. A true revolution of values
will lay hand on the world order and say of war, this way
of settling differences is not just. This business of burning
human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes
with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of
hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending
men home from dark and bloody battlefields, physically
handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled
with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues,
year after year, to spend more money
on military defense than on programs
of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most
powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in
this revolution of values. There is nothing except a
tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities
so that the pursuit of peace will that precedence
over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from
molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands
until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood." [APPLAUSE] November of 1970, after he was
arrested at a protest in Boston at an army base, trying to block
soldiers from going to Vietnam, Howard Zinn, the inspiration
for tonight's program, flew to Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore to take part in a debate with
a philosopher named Charles Frankel on civil disobedience. Ironically though
that very night he was supposed to--
that very day was supposed to appear
in court in Boston in connection with his arrest. So Howard had a choice whether
to go to court that day or show up in Baltimore
and demonstrate his support for civil disobedience. So Howard made the
obvious choice in his case and flew to Baltimore to
give this speech which you'll hear tonight. Of course he was
arrested as soon as he got back to his
classroom at Boston University. "I start from the supposition
that the world is topsy turvy, that things
are all wrong, that the wrong
people are in jail, and the wrong people
are out of jail, that the wrong
people are in power, and the wrong people
are out of power, that the wealth is
distributed in this country, and the world in such a way
as not simply to require small reform, but to require a
drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the
supposition that we don't have to say too much about
this because all we have to do is think about the
state of the world today and realize that
things are all upside down. Daniel Berrigan is in jail-- a Catholic priest, a
poet, who opposes the war, and J Edgar Hoover
is free, you see. At Kent State
University, four students were killed by
the National Guard and students were indicted. So we have to start
from that supposition, that things are
really topsy turvy. And our topic is topsy
turvy, civil disobedience. As soon as you say the
topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem
is civil disobedience. That is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the
numbers of people all over the world
who have obeyed the dictates of the
leaders of their government and have gone to war. And millions have been killed
because of this obedience. We have to transcend
these national boundaries in our thinking. Nixon and Brezhnev have much
more in common with one another than we have with Nixon. J Edgar Hoover has
far more in common with the head of the
Soviet secret police than he has with us. That's why we're
always surprised when they get together. They smile, they shake
hands, they smoke cigars. They really like one another,
no matter what they say. What we are trying
to do, I assume, is really to get back to the
principles and aims and spirit of the Declaration
of Independence. This spirit is resistance
to illegitimate authority, and to forces that
deprive people of their life and liberty and
right to pursue happiness. And therefore, under
these conditions, it urges the right
to alter or abolish their current form
of government. And the stress had
been on abolish. But to establish the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, we are going
to need to go outside the law. My hope is that
this kind of spirit will take place, not
just in this country, but in other countries. Because they all need it. People in all countries need
the spirit of disobedience to the state. And we need a kind of
declaration of interdependence among people in all countries
of the world who are striving for the same thing." [APPLAUSE] In 2010, Chelsea
Manning, formerly known as Private First Class
Bradley E. Manning, released hundreds of thousands
of classified documents to the transparency
organization Wikileaks. Manning spent nearly a year
in solitary confinement before facing court
martial on charges including aiding the enemy. The following is a transcript
of Manning's statement, read by her lawyer David Coombs,
after she was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison
for her bold and brave act of conscience. "The decisions
that I made in 2010 were made out of concern for
my country, her citizens, and the wider world
that we live in. Since the events of
September 11, 2001, the US has been
involved in a war with an enemy that chose
and chooses not to use a traditional battle-space. Due to this fact, we
altered our methods for combating the risk
posed to us in America and our way of life. For a long time I agreed
with these methods. I chose to volunteer and
help defend my country. However, it was not
until I arrived in Iraq and was finally connecting
the dots between the contents of often classified military
and diplomatic documents that I worked with on a daily basis
and real flesh and blood that I realized, in our
efforts to meet the risks posed to us by our enemies,
we had completely forgotten about our humanity. We consciously and
repeatedly elected to devalue human life, both
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now elsewhere. When we engage those we
perceived as the enemy, we often killed
innocent civilians. And whenever we killed
innocent civilians, we chose to not accept
responsibilities for these failures,
and instead hid behind a complex and growing
veil of national security and classification in order to
avoid public accountability. In our zeal to kill the
enemy, we internally debated the
definition of torture. We held individuals in
Guantanamo Bay for years without due process of law. We inexplicably turned a blind
eye to torture and execution by our host nation partners
in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we stomached
countless other recorded and documented acts in the
name of our war on terror. All too often
patriotism is the cry extolled when morally and
ethically questionable acts are advocated
by those in power. When these cries of patriotism
drown out any logically based intentions, it is usually
the eager and dedicated American soldier
on the ground that is given orders to carry out
an ill conceived mission. As the late Howard
Zinn once said, 'There is not a flag large
enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.' I understand that my
actions violated the law, but I acted only out of
a desire to help people. When I chose to disclose
classified information to the public, I
did so out of a love for my country, her citizens,
and a sense of duty to others. I served my time knowing
that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price
to live in a free society. I will gladly pay
that price if it means we could have a
country that is truly conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all women and men
are created equal." [APPLAUSE] I think we have a little
bit of a treat for you all-- one song that is
not in the program. If Stew and Hayes
and Teddy and Allison would rise to the occasion. Stew, no? Yes? Maybe? Yes? One last number from Robert
Zimmerman, Bob Dylan. [MUSIC - TEDDY THOMPSON, ALLISON
MOORER, HAYES CARLL, STEW, "I SHALL BE RELEASED"] (SINGING) They say
everything can be replaced, at every distance is not near. So I remember every face of
every man who put me here. I see my light come shining
from the west down to the east. Any day how, any day
now, I shall be released. They say every man
needs protection. They say that every
man must fall. Yet I swear I see my
reflection in some place so high above it all. I see my light come shining
from the west down to the east. Any day now, any day
now, I shall be released. Standing next to me
in this lonely crowd is a man who swears
he's not to blame. All day long I hear him shout
so loud, crying out, crying out that he was framed. I see my light come shining,
from the west down to the east. Any day now, any day
now, I shall be released. Any day now, any day
now, I shall be released. [APPLAUSE] Please join me in thanking
Susan Pourfar, Brian Jones, Allison Moorer, Hayes Carll,
Fatou Thiam, Viggo Mortensen, Kathleen Chalfant, Stew, Peter
Sarsgaard, and Teddy Thompson. Thank you, Lincoln Center. Thank all of you for coming out. We'll see you on May 19th. [APPLAUSE]
