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Called the "radical historian and people-loving trouble-maker" by one of his students, Howard Zinn, the author of A People's History of the United States, mesmerized over 600 fans with a much-awaited lecture at the University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology Wednesday. The lecture was organized and presented by the Wooden Shoe Books, a self-described "anarchist" bookstore on Fifth Street and Books Through Bars, an all-volunteer collective based in Philadelphia that facilitates prison education. Poet Lamont Steptoe, himself the author of eight books, preceded Zinn with poetry readings consisting of some of his own work and the work of Mumia Abu Jamal, a controversial local figure who is currently serving a life sentence for murder. Zinn, known as an outspoken critic of the current prison system, then spoke of the suffering and frustration of the prisoners who are trying to reform and educate themselves. These prisoners, he added, have hope of rehabilitating themselves despite the existence of life sentences in prison and the abolishment of the Prison Education Program in 1994 by the federal government. He also provided a variety of examples of prisoners who are trying to fight what Zinn termed as the "stupidity of what's called our justice system." Zinn then pointed out that "prison, punishment, death, execution, it doesn't stop crime." "Crimes come out of something deep in the society, something sick in the society which transfers itself into the sickness in individuals who then do things like that," he added. Turning to the issue of capital punishment, he asked, "Why do it? Because it's only right to have retribution? An eye for an eye?" "People in our society don't want to look at deeper solutions or go deeper into the reasons why these things happen," he explained. Zinn also commented on President Bill Clinton, who he accused of allocating money to perpetuate the existing prison system instead of trying to find "real solutions." He added that these funds should instead be used for public education. Referring to the history of the massacres of Native Americans in the 1800s and the treatment of African-Americans in the South, Zinn also argued that a nation that commits such high crimes forfeits its rights to punish individual criminals. At the end of the lecture, Zinn commended the work of organizations such as Books Through Bars and encouraged the audience to come up with better solutions to the "deep rooted" problems of crime and punishment in the United States. The lecture was followed by a question-and-answer session and a booksigning of some of Zinn's works. Brian Siano, an office coordinator at the University, reflected the general reaction of the audience when he said, "Very impressive. His work is inspiring? a real eye-opener." Rachel Roberts, an editor with Current History magazine, said the lecture was "enlightening, truthful." "I was very impressed with Howard Zinn and with Lamont Steptoe and I'm very glad that this is going on at U. Penn," she added.

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