Zinn's Fight For Equality

right thing and Zinn provides evidence to support all of these people. For example, African Americans fought for equality for generations in hopes that their children would live a better life than them. Many of them were involved with the rebellions around the 60s; they felt a need to rebel since peaceful protests did not make any changes. By acting up and letting their voices becoming heard, civil rights laws were passed in 1960, 1964, and 1957. These laws promised voting equality, and employment equality. However, during many of these rebellions, many people were hurt and even killed while fighting for change making African Americans fight more vigorously for rights. Another group that faced struggles were students who were opposing the …show more content…
The middle class struggled because their taxes were being raised to pay for special programs for the lower classes. The people of the middle class also experienced cuts in their jobs. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan cut social services and many residents came to protest against cuts in funds for the teacher, firemen, and police force. The middle class also felt the pressure on rising prices and the uneasiness of finding a job. Zinn states that, “a college education is no longer a guarentee against joblessness” (APH 637). With this, the middle class begun working for change and Zinn believes that they will work with the lower classes to make this change. Through out history, women were always thrown around and they were never taken into consideration. Women soon began to work towards change, during the 1960s many women began to speak out and they were no longer opressed and pushed away. During 1960, the average women only made one third of what a man would make. This began a number of civil rights movements, and many groups such as WITCH began to form in hopes to have their voices heard. Another group who was despereate for their voices to be heard were the people in opposition to nuclear …show more content…
Howard Zinn discusses Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr in his book as well. All five of these presidents gave false pretenses, they all put money into the military budget, they cut benefits for the poor, and they lowered taxes for the rich. The primary consensus among these presidents was the military. All of them put large amounts of money into the military when there were other programs and people who could have used that money. An example of this would be when President Carter promised to cut the military budget, but one of his first budget proposals was in fact an increase of $10 billion to the military budget. Clinton also spent $250 billion a year to maintain the military machine as noted by Zinn in the chapter titled The Clinton Presidency. Bush Jr. also continued to increase the military budget, Zinn writes that he went from spending $300 billion to $400 billion a year for the military. Reagan too spent an alarming amount on the military. Zinn states, “While he built up the military (allocations of over a trillion dollars in his first four years in office)...” (577 APH). Zinn also talks about how Bush Sr., “moved to increase the military budget” (APH 677). While they all put money into the military, that also meant that money was not being put into any other programs to aid the poor. All of these presidents made cuts in other programs in order to increase the military budget. An example of this can be seen when Reagan made a $140 billion cut in the