WITH ANTHONY ARNOVE
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SFR: Can you talk about the process of researching Voices of a People's History of the United States? What were the essential elements you looked for when deciding what to include in the 200 readings, almost 700 pages?
AA:
We decided early on that we would make
Voices
parallel to
People's History
in its chapter structure so people reading or teaching the
People's History
could teach
Voices
alongside it. So that same chapter in
People's History
and
Voices
has that same scheme but some overlap with the readings included. A number of the readings are examples of subjects Howard [Zinn] treats briefly in
People's History
. There are also places we chose a different speech, a different reading that introduces voices that hadn't been included in
People's
History
when he published it in 1980. The scope of that book imposed limits on all the people and documents he could use. And we have drawn on the research of people who have found voices and words Howard
didn't have access to before. We consulted librarians, scholars and activists with expertise in different areas. We had to pare down the selections drastically. In fact the first submission to the publisher was twice as long. There were so many great selections it was hard to decide which to include: which Martin Luther King, which Hellen Keller, which Tecumsah.
While assembling Voices, did you discover any readings that surprised you, either for force of rhetoric or prescience of politics?
A number of the readings surprised us and a number felt remarkably prophetic. One of the readings that really stands out in the book is a speech Susan B Anthony gave in a courtroom when sentenced for the crime of illegal voting. She voted before women ever
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voted. It's a wonderful exchange with Judge Ward Hunt. I read about Susan B Anthony in school and at one point she was on the dollar coin. I received a toned-down version of what she represented, but actually the speech is quite radical, one of the readings we will probably perform at the Lensic. People who have heard her response to the sentence agree it is really remarkable.
I think there are a number of themes in the book that speak to today. What I learned most working on this book was the extraordinary resilience of some of these figures like Frederick Douglass or Sojourner Truth. The kind of goals they set for themselves seem at the time so difficult, so Utopian, like opposing slavery. They took on massive institutions of political power that had courts, police, money and the press on their side. They started as a persecuted minority with seemingly little chance of success and they brought about fundamental change. A lot of people today feel a sense of despair that you can't change history or confront the forces arrayed against us with hope for fundamental change, but history disproves that.
Are you getting any unexpected reactions, either in the press or directly from readers, for including any particular voices?
We've recently added a speech by Cindy Sheehan to some of the performed readings after Marisa Tomei gave a brilliant performance in 2005 that received a very positive, emotional reaction. Howard and I want to make the point that this is not just a book. This is not just history on the page. History is something we can be part of if we bring our voices together. Sheehan is an example of that. You hear her working it out in the speech: 'I think I'm going to go to Crawford, Texas. I think I'm going to confront George Bush. Where is Crawford, Texas?'
Millions of people felt emboldened by that act, millions of people against the war. Now we're at a point where the majority of the country opposes the war in Iraq, and Sheehan galvanized a lot of that sentiment.
Ten years ago we studied media together at Brown University. Can you talk a little about how media theory applies today?
Right now it's clear that any political movement has to include discussion of the role of media in this country. There's no way we could've gotten into the Iraq debacle without complicity from the media. Look back at how they covered the administration's case for war. No other word can describe it but criminal. Every major network and newspaper front-lined and front-paged the most absurd claims of the administration about WMDs and al-Qaida exiles who supposedly had proof of biological- and chemical-weapon materials being manufactured in Iraq. And we said it was absurd, and it turns out we were right. The administration manipulated the news and the media went along for the ride.
Your new book, Iraq: the Case for Withdrawal, was recently published by the New Press. Are there journalists you can recommend who are reporting on Iraq?
One of best people writing about Iraq is Dahr Jamail on his Web site (
). It's far better reporting. He took serious risks to be an unembedded reporter at a time when most reporters were afraid to leave their hotel rooms or only went out to the Green Zone where they were briefed by military spokespeople on the official lies about the day's events, which they duly reported, reporting like a small-town newspaper reports on the local football team. Jeremy Scahill has been an important voice reporting for the Nation, the Independent, and several Web sites.
On the international scene, a number of journalists have a growing audience in the US as people are looking beyond the US media: Amira Hass Haaretz in Israel, Robert Fisk in London, also John Pilger writing in the New Statesman.
Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn will present dramatic readings from
Voices of a People's History of the United States
with Jane Fonda, Marisa Tomei, Rubén Martínez and others at 7 pm Wednesday, April 26. Although the event is sold out, it will be rebroadcast and podcast. More info at www.lannan.org.
