American Protest Literature

by Trodd, Zoe

• ISBN13: 9780674023529
• ISBN10: 0674023528
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-30
• Publisher: BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Summary

"I like a little rebellion now and then"--so wrote Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, enlisting in a tradition that throughout American history has led writers to rage and reason, prophesy and provoke. This is the first anthology to collect and examine an American literature that holds the nation to its highest ideals, castigating it when it falls short and pointing the way to a better collective future. American Protest Literature presents sources from eleven protest movements--political, social, and cultural--from the Revolution to abolition to gay rights to antiwar protest. Each section reprints documents from the original phase of the movement as well as evidence of its legacy in later times. Informative headnotes place the selections in historical context and draw connections with other writings within the anthology and beyond. Sources include a wide variety of genres--pamphlets, letters, speeches, sermons, legal documents, poems, short stories, photographs, posters--and a range of voices from prophetic to outraged to sorrowful, from U.S. Presidents to the disenfranchised. Together they provide an enlightening and inspiring survey of this most American form of literature.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
John Stauffer
Introduction	xix
Declaring Independence
The American Revolution
The Literature
``A Political Litany'' (1775)	3	(2)
Philip Freneau
From Common Sense (1776)	5	(5)
Thomas Paine
From ``The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men'' (1776)	10	(5)
John Witherspoon
The Declaration of Independence (1776)	15	(4)
From Letters from an American Farmer (1782)	19	(5)
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
The Legacy
``The Working Men's Party Declaration of Independence'' (1829)	24	(3)
George Evans
``Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments'' (1848)	27	(4)
From ``Resistance to Civil Government'' (1849)	31	(5)
Henry David Thoreau
From ``Provisional Constitution'' (1858)	36	(2)
John Brown
From ``Declaration of Interdependence by the Socialist Labor Party'' (1895)	38	(7)
Daniel De Leon
Unvanishing the Indian
Native American Rights
The Literature
Speech to Governor William Harrison at Vincennes (1810)	45	(3)
Tecumseh
``An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man'' (1833)	48	(7)
William Apess
``Indian Names'' (1834)	55	(2)
Lydia Sigourney
From From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916)	57	(4)
Charles Eastman
From Black Elk Speaks (1932)	61	(4)
Black Elk
John G. Neihardt
The Legacy
From Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)	65	(3)
Dee Brown
``What Is the American Indian Movement?'' (1973)	68	(2)
Birgil Kills Straight
Richard LaCourse
``American Indians and Vietnamese'' (1973)	70	(2)
Roland Winkler
From Lakota Woman (1990)	72	(3)
Mary Crow Dog
``The Exaggeration of Despair'' (1996)	75	(4)
Sherman Alexie
Little Books That Started a Big War
Abolition and Antislavery
The Literature
From Appeal to the Coloured Citizens (1829)	79	(6)
David Walker
From Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)	85	(7)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
From ``The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro'' (1852)	92	(7)
Frederick Douglass
Prison Letters (1859)	99	(7)
John Brown
From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)	106	(6)
Harriet Jacobs
The Legacy
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution (1863, 1865--1870)	112	(4)
``Solidarity Forever'' (1915)	116	(2)
Ralph Chaplin
From ``Everybody's Protest Novel'' (1949)	118	(4)
James Baldwin
From The Defiant Ones (1958)	122	(2)
Stanley Kramer
From Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (1999)	124	(9)
Kevin Bales
This Land Is Herland
Women's Rights and Suffragism
The Literature
From ``Shall Women Have the Right to Vote?'' (1851)	133	(6)
Wendell Phillips
From ``Women and Suffrage'' (1867)	139	(5)
Lydia Maria Child
National Woman Suffrage Association From ``Declaration and Protest of the Women of the United States'' (1876)	144	(5)
From ``Solitude of Self'' (1892)	149	(6)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
``The Yellow Wallpaper'' (1892)	155	(15)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Legacy
``Frederick Douglass'' (1908)	170	(5)
Mary Church Terrell
From ``Why Women Should Vote'' (1910)	175	(6)
Jane Addams
From Herland (1915)	181	(4)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Nineteenth Amendment and Equal Rights Amendments (1920, 1923, 1943)	185	(2)
``Now We Can Begin'' (1920)	187	(8)
Crystal Eastman
Capitalism's Discontents
Socialism and Industry
The Literature
From Life in the Iron Mills (1861)	195	(9)
Rebecca Harding Davis
From Looking Backward, 2000--1887 (1888)	204	(7)
Edward Bellamy
From How the Other Half Lives (1890)	211	(5)
Jacob Riis
From The Jungle (1906)	216	(6)
Upton Sinclair
``Sadie Pfeifer'' and ``Making Human Junk'' (1908, 1915)	222	(3)
Lewis Hine
The Legacy
From ``The People's Party Platform'' (1892)	225	(4)
Ignatius Donnelly
From Food and Drugs Act and Meat Inspection Act (1906)	229	(3)
Statement to the Court (1918)	232	(5)
Eugene V. Debs
``Farewell, Capitalist America!'' (1929)	237	(3)
William (Big Bill) Haywood
From Nickel and Dimed (2001)	240	(7)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Strange Fruit
Against Lynching
The Literature
From Southern Horrors (1892)	247	(9)
Ida B. Wells
``Jesus Christ in Texas'' (1920)	256	(8)
W. E.B. Du Bois
``The Lynching'' (1920)	264	(2)
Claude McKay
From ``Big Boy Leaves Home'' (1936)	266	(8)
Richard Wright
``Strange Fruit'' (1937, 1939)	274	(2)
Abel Meeropol
Billie Holiday
The Legacy
League of Struggle for Negro Rights ``Bill for Negro Rights and the Suppression of Lynching'' (1934)	276	(3)
``Federal Law Is Imperative'' (1947)	279	(2)
Helen Gahagan Douglas
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee ``Take a Stand against the Klan'' (1980)	281	(5)
From ``AmeriKKKa 1998: The Lynching of James Byrd'' (1998)	286	(3)
Michael Slate
``The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, 1930'' (2000)	289	(4)
Dust Tracks on the Road
The Great Depression
The Literature
``Migrant Mother'' (1936)	293	(2)
Dorothea Lange
``Farmer and Sons'' (1936)	295	(2)
Arthur Rothstein
From The Grapes of Wrath (1939)	297	(6)
John Steinbeck
Hale County, Alabama (1936, 1941)	303	(3)
Walker Evans
From Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)	306	(10)
James Agee
The Legacy
``Tom Joad'' (1940)	316	(4)
Woody Guthrie
From 12 Million Black Voices (1941)	320	(6)
Richard Wright
Edwin Rosskam
From The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955)	326	(2)
Roy DeCarava
Langston Hughes
From The Other America (1962)	328	(4)
Michael Harrington
``Poverty Is a Crime'' (1972)	332	(5)
Malik
The Dungeon Shook
Civil Rights and Black Liberation
The Literature
``Montgomery: Reflections of a Loving Alien'' (1956)	337	(5)
Robert Granat
``My Dungeon Shook'' (1962)	342	(4)
James Baldwin
From ``Letter from Birmingham Jail'' (1963)	346	(8)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
``Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C.'' (1963)	354	(2)
Marion Trikosko
From ``The Ballot or the Bullet'' (1964)	356	(8)
Malcolm X
The Legacy
``On Civil Rights'' (1963)	364	(5)
John F. Kennedy
From ``The American Promise'' (1965)	369	(6)
Lyndon B. Johnson
``Black Art'' (1966)	375	(3)
Amiri Baraka
``Panther Power'' (1989)	378	(3)
Tupac Shakur
New Black Panther Party ``Ten Point Program'' (2001)	381	(6)
A Problem That Had No Name
Second-Wave Feminism
The Literature
``I Stand Here Ironing'' (1956)	387	(7)
Tillie Olsen
From The Feminine Mystique (1963)	394	(6)
Betty Friedan
National Organization for Women ``Statement of Purpose'' (1966)	400	(6)
``Women's Liberation Has a Different Meaning for Blacks'' (1970)	406	(5)
Renee Ferguson
``For the Equal Rights Amendment'' (1970)	411	(5)
Shirley Chisholm
The Legacy
Letter to Betty Friedan (1963)	416	(2)
Gerda Lerner
``Poetry Is Not a Luxury'' (1977)	418	(4)
Audre Lorde
``The Female and the Silence of a Man'' (1989)	422	(2)
June Jordan
From The Morning After (1993)	424	(6)
Katie Roiphe
``Women Don't Riot'' (1998)	430	(5)
Ana Castillo
The Word is Out
Gay Liberation
The Literature
From ``Howl'' (1956)	435	(3)
Allen Ginsberg
Stonewall Documents (1969--1970)	438	(6)
From ``Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto'' (1969)	444	(7)
Carl Wittman
``The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements'' (1970)	451	(3)
Huey P. Newton
From Street Theater (1982)	454	(4)
Doric Wilson
The Legacy
Act Up ``Read My Lips'' (1988); Bill T. Jones Still/Here (1994)	458	(2)
From Angels in America (1990, 1991)	460	(7)
Tony Kushner
``Dyke Manifesto'' (1993)	467	(4)
Lesbian Avengers
From Stone Butch Blues (1993)	471	(5)
Leslie Feinberg
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003)	476	(5)
From Saigon to Baghdad
The Vietnam War and Beyond
The Literature
Country Joe and the Fish ``I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag'' (1965)	481	(3)
``Advent 1966'' (1966)	484	(2)
Denise Levertov
From Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967)	486	(3)
Norman Mailer
``Saigon'' (1968)	489	(2)
Eddie Adams
``Napalm'' (1972)
Nick (Huynh Cong) Ut
From Dispatches (1967--1969, 1977)	491	(5)
Michael Herr
The Legacy
``April 30, 1975'' (1975)	496	(2)
John Balaban
From ``How to Tell a True War Story'' (1987)	498	(4)
Tim O'Brien
Poets against the War	502	(1)
``Speak Out'' (2003)	503	(1)
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
``Poem of War'' (2003)	504	(1)
Jim Harrison
``Poem of Disconnected Parts'' (2005)	505	(2)
Robert Pinsky
``Who Would Jesus Torture?'' (2004)	507	(3)
Clinton Fein
From Born on the Fourth of July (1976, 2005)	510	(5)
Ron Kovic
Afterword	515	(4)
Howard Zinn
Sources	519	(10)
Acknowledgments	529	(2)
Index	531