We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of American History

We Are the People collects the personal accounts, letters, speeches and other documents that, together, tell the untold story of American history—two centuries of struggle from the perspective of the people. Featuring first-person accounts by numerous forgotten Americans who provide alternative perspectives on critical moments in our history, this book transports us to many of our country’s most moving and least celebrated moments, from heart-wrenching slave narratives to pivotal labor speeches, from piercing manifestos by women’s-rights proponents to American Indians’ accounts of the shame of their culture’s destruction. We Are the People also explores issues such as poverty, corporate power, immigration, and civil liberties. It includes selections ranging from a Quaker’s account of life as a conscientious objector during the Civil War to an interview with a woman who helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott; from a native American’s description of a cavalry charge on a Cheyenne encampment to exploited coal miners’ tales of woe; from a contemporary mother’s account of stealing groceries to feed her children to manifestoes by today’s anti-corporate guerillas. A gripping, accessible read, We Are the People reveals an American experience that is pushed aside, forgotten or ignored all too often by our mainstream mythology.