Explore "The Massacres of History" by Howard Zinn on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I suppose that this essay from The Progressive is not just a reminder that there are massacres in American history which deserve to be remembered as much, or even more, than the famous Boston Massacre. It is also a commentary on how history itself is "massacred" by the omission of important, often embarrassing episodes-that is, embarrassing to those who insist that the nation's record must be kept clean, that the myth of American exceptionalism must be retained, that we are different and better than other nations.
This spring I was invited to participate in a symposium in Boston at historic Faneuil Hall (named after a slave trader but the site of many abolitionist meetings). The topic was to be the Boston Massacre. I hesitated a moment, then said, yes, I would speak, but only if I could also speak about other massacres in American history.