Howard Zinn: Chapter 17 and 18 Analysis In chapter 17 I learned about the black revolt of the 1950s and 1960s and how racism was handled in the 20th century. After World War II, president Harry Truman had to to take action on the race question. Truman appointed a Committee on Civil Rights to stop voting discrimination and end racial discrimination in jobs. Then after a few years trying to change racism, the “separate but equal” doctrine was struck down. It seemed like a rapid change, but nothing was happening. Black people rose in rebellion and the federal government never enforced the laws that were created to stop segregation. Congress began reacting to the black revolt. Civil rights laws were passed but enforced poorly. In 1967, in the black ghettos of the country, came the greatest urban riots of American history. Congress responded to the riots of 1967 by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1968. But problems were still going untouched by civil rights laws. But as time went on, whites and blacks were crossing racial lines in the South to unite as a class against employers. Reading this chapter I got a good look at the black history in our country and all the hardships this country had to go throughn. Each of these historical events was backed up by poems and articles. They made the information fun to read! My favorite example was the conversation between the black teenager who took people to vote and the registrar. It was so powerful. Howard Zinn wrote this book differently than I expected. When I looked at the book, I saw opinions, but then I started reading and Zinn didn't run his mouth off, he used poems and newspaper articles to show the truth of the time period. I don't exactly know how to explain this, but it wasn't like reading a textbook, it was like reading a regular, interesting book. Long, but interesting. I think they way he wrote it made me stay engaged. I kept reading trying to learn more and now that I'm done, I wish I had started at the beginning of summer so I could have read the whole book. This chapter showed me a lot of where this country started with racism and makes me appreciate how far we've come.

In Chapter 18, I learned about the Vietnam war and the resistance to it. Troops themselves didn't like the war. Many soldiers were put off by the horrible things that they were made to take part in, such as the My Lai massacre. My favorite example in this chapter was the letter from Seymour Hersh to his parents about what was going on in the war. They were destroying small villages. The more unpopular the Saigon government became, the more desperate the military effort was to make up for it. By early 1968, some Americans were questioning the cruelty of the war while others were questioning the fact that the US was losing. In the fall of 1968, Richard Nixon was elected President claiming he could get the US out of Vietnam. But the moves Nixon made to end the war were failing. Protests