Howard Zinn Quotes

Nothing of course was ever done to Bill for the killing of Tutt.

What too few people mention when discussing crime is the degree to which concentrated poverty, hopelessness and despair are the chambermaids of violence and incivility.

If we continue to create a world where there is poverty and disrespect, there will continue to be terrorism.

We have ministers who are incapable of doing what has been ordered from above because there is no follow up, because there are no consequences. If you are poor man and you steal, your hand is cut off after three offences. But if you are a rich man, nobody will say anything to you.

Crimes are more often committed out of fear than wickedness. People live frightened, desperate lives.

They got the judges / They got the lawyers / They got the jury rolls / They got the law / They don’t come by ones. / They got the sheriffs / They got the deputies / They don’t come by twos. / They got the shotguns / They got the rope / We git the justice / In the end / And they come by tens.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Disenfranchisement is the deliberate theft and robbery of the only protection of poor against rich and black against white.

It is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

One fact, when I was a slave, often filled me with indignation. There were many poor white lads of about my own age, belonging to families scattered around, who were as poor in personal effects as we were; and yet, though our companions, (when we chose to tolerate them,) they did not have to be controlled by a master, to go and come at his command, to be sold for his debts, or whenever he wanted extra pocket-money. The preachers of a slave-trading gospel frequently told us, in their sermons, that we should be "good boys," and not break into master's hen-roost, nor steal his bacon; but they never told this to these poor white people, although they knew very well that they encouraged the slaves to steal, trafficked in stolen goods, and stole themselves.

… injustice breeds injustice

The net of law is spread so wide, No sinner from its sweep may hide. Its meshes are so fine and strong They take in every child of wrong. O wondrous web of mystery ! Big fish alone escape from thee !

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

You have to start with slavery because those abuses have never been eradicated. You know, people are not living in slums because they voted to. You know, their children are not in jail because they wanted them to. You know, these are the results of a people who have been oppressed and suffer national oppression, you know.

The fact that apartheid has been tied up with white supremacy, capitalist exploitation, and deliberate oppression makes the problem much more complex. Material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty, it kills.

Not since the early days of the civil rights movement has America been given an opportunity as great as the opportunity we have now. It's one thing for us to avenge our pain, our anger, and our rage by targeting bin Laden and a handful of men who have wrought this villainy. But one should be wise enough to ask, What fueled all this? What continues to sustain the possibility that this will not go away? I think the answer is poverty.

Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.

Steal a loaf of bread and they hang you, steal a land and they'll make you king.

White people deserve to be hit, deserve to be the victims of crime and acts of terror because they have for so long been the unfair, unjust, immoral majority throughout most of the nations that are imbued with Western civilization. If you think that’s an exaggeration, it isn’t. That is exactly how the Democrat Party of today and the American left looks at things.

Crispus Attucks, who said, Don't shoot till you see the whites! Never got a dinner!

Most of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and have nots.

There will never be quietness in this country till half a dozen of you be hanged or banished.

America is yours [Whites] today because of crime and violence.

We have crime without punishment.

All down history, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks, and bidden to thank God they had the husks.