Voices of a People's History of the United States

Voices of a People's History of the United States (ISBN 978-1583229163) is an anthology edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. First released in 2004 by Seven Stories Press, Voices is the primary source companion to Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The book parallels A People's History in structure and is made up of various primary sources with short introductions to those sources.

Seven Stories Press released an updated edition with a new chapter in November 2009.^[1]

In the introduction, Zinn explains his motivation for the book:

I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women—once they organize and protest and create movements—have a voice no government can suppress.

Among the writings, speeches, poems, songs and other sources included in the book are selections by Chief Joseph, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, John Brown, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, Joe Hill, Eugene V. Debs, Langston Hughes, John Steinbeck, Malcolm X, Alice Walker, Martin Luther King, Jr., Allen Ginsberg, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Leonard Peltier, Noam Chomsky, César Chávez, Abbie Hoffman, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Julia Butterfly Hill and many others.

The People Speak

In 2009, the documentary film The People Speak was released. Narrated by Zinn, the film uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States.^[2]

The People Speak was produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore, Arnove, and Zinn, co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn, and features dramatic and musical performances by Allison Moorer, Benjamin Bratt, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Robinson, Christina Kirk, Danny Glover, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, David Strathairn, Don Cheadle, Eddie Vedder, Harris Yulin, Jasmine Guy, John Legend, Josh Brolin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Lupe Fiasco, Marisa Tomei, Martín Espada, Matt Damon, Michael Ealy, Mike O'Malley, Morgan Freeman, P!nk, Q'orianka Kilcher, Reg E. Cathey, Rich Robinson, Rosario Dawson, Sandra Oh, Sean Penn, Staceyann Chin and Viggo Mortensen.