People’s History at AHA in New York

The Zinn Education Project co-hosted a booth at the American Historical Association (AHA) annual meeting in New York from January 4–6, along with HowardZinn.org.

We offered information about our Reconstruction report, Teach Climate Justice campaign, and all our people’s history lessons. Many visitors took photos with our #TeachTruth frame and recorded comments in our story booth.

On Sunday, historian Jeanne Theoharis signed copies of both editions of her book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. Thanks to donations, we gave away copies to teachers of the young reader’s edition.

We also gave teachers copies of Matthew Delmont’s Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad and Jesse Hagopian’s new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education.

We saw many colleague and advisors, including Eric Foner, Hilary Green, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, Joe Schmidt, Annie Valk, Stacie Brensilver Berman, Jessica Terry-Elliott, Michael Meeropol, A’Lelia Bundles, Barbara Winslow, Daniel Levinson Wilk, Paul Ortiz, and Prentiss Charney fellow Ina Pannell-Saint Surin.

This was a good year for us to attend since there were a number of sessions on the new American Historical Association report on the teaching of U.S. history in secondary schools. (More than a quarter of the teachers surveyed for that report use Zinn Education Project resources.) During the AHA meeting, thanks to the leadership of our colleagues at Historians for Peace and Democracy, the members voted to support the resolution to oppose scholasticide in Gaza.

Here are some of the stories shared at our booth by Frida Berrigan, Ian Weissman, Lincoln Pereira, and Naeta Rohr. (Frida was volunteering at our neighbor booth, the War Resisters League.

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View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Zinn Education Project (@zinneducationproject)	View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Zinn Education Project (@zinneducationproject)

 

Howard Zinn Legacy

We shared a booth with the Howard Zinn Legacy website, staffed by Lauren Cooper, the Howard Zinn digital curator for Teaching for Change. Visitors learned about the recent indexing of the archives and all the resources available at HowardZinn.org.

A number of people commented on how reading Zinn’s work led them to become a teacher or historian. New York City social studies teacher Naeta Rohr (in short video clip above) told us that she came across A People’s History of the United States while in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso. She resolved to become a teacher on her return to teach the history she’d not learned until reading Zinn’s book. Other visitors had connections to Zinn. For example, Zinn wrote the introduction to David Cortright’s Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War.

Reception

“You are all my heroes,” said SNCC veteran Dottie Zellner to the teachers, archivists, historians, and other activists gathered at our informal reception on Sunday evening.

We hosted the reception at a bar called The Elgin, close to the conference site, so that friends and colleagues attending the conference and others in the New York area could get together.

Midway through the evening we invited Zellner and early childhood book author Megan Madison to share brief remarks. Madison reminded attendees of the importance of nurturing community — like the gathering that evening — to withstand the growing forces of fascism. Historian Evan Rothman shared the results of the AHA members’ vote which had just taken place, back at the hotel, on the resolution to oppose scholasticide in Gaza. Everyone raised a glass to cheer the resounding vote of 428 in favor and 88 opposed.

Attendees included Kevin Young and other historians from the AHA conference, SNCC veteran Dottie Zellner, early childhood book author Megan Madison, Roslyne Shiao of AAPI Montclair, Prentiss Charney fellows Ina Pannell-Saint Surin and Tess Raser, ZEP team member Mimi Eisen, educator Gary Benenson, HowardZinn.org digital curator Lauren Cooper, Teaching for Change board treasurer Gita Rao, Tamiment archivist Shannon O’Neill, teachers, peace activists, publishers, and more.