I took the first course that Howard Zinn taught at Boston University. It was PO 306 Civil Liberties. Fall, 1964. No text book. Original documents. American Friends Service Committee field reports. Congressional committee reports. Get history first-hand; get involved, intellectually and personally. The seeming disjunction between Howard’s service as a bombardier in WWII and his advocacy of a retreat from the cold war and a focus on racial equality and political change in the 1960s was never understood by his critics. His own story was compelling and exciting. Lots of people didn’t want this kind of story to happen.
And he kept on, patiently and persuasively, telling this story. The first printing of his “The People’s History of the United States,” was 5,000 copies. It has since been translated into many languages and Howard had a very special program on The History Channel. But how very far we have traveled to the right when Glenn Beck’s ravings are not at all unusual and when the calm, measured presence of Zinn seems like something from another world. Well, it is from another world.
Howard amply filled the space vacated by the death of C. Wright Mills (in 1962) who, in the 1950s and early 1960s, was the premiere social and political critic writing and speaking from an academic position. Howard filled the vital the role of the historian/social scientist who was also a serious (often and necessarily strident) critic. Howard’s passing leaves a huge vacuum in that vital tradition.
In my graduate nursing program class 20 years ago there was a student who’d been an undergrad at BU and a student of Howard Zinn’s; she told some fun stories about him. I had never heard of him. Over the years, as I’ve become an activist of sorts myself, I’ve gotten much more familiar with Zinn’s work and the example and inspiration he provided–and will continue to provide–to so many.
I agree.
you can go to Waltham or order online from independent bookseller Back Pages Books, who published Zinn’s “The State of the Union 2009: Notes for a New Administration” last March or get any of his other books
I have updated the link to point to the Harvard book store, also an independent.
I was saying to my husband last night that Zinn was one of those people I would look to for wisdom when something happened in the world that provoked anguish or despair or
outrage. I will miss that hopeful feeling of anticipating his analysis of world events. I’ll also miss seeing him riding his bike around Wellfleet and waiting on line for a beach parking permit.
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p>Someone shared a little bit of vintage Zinn on an education listserv. I pass it along to folks here at BMG. It’s called On Getting Along; read it and see how Zinn continues to inspire and bolster our spirits, even in death.
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p>A mensch on a truly cosmic scale.
My first attempt to provide a link to Zinn’s On Getting Along doesn’t seem to work. Try this.
Already posted over my desk.
Small Town Guy, I echo your thoughtful sentiments on the vital role Howard Zinn played in bringing into the public consciousness the heroic struggles of the “have nots,” “dispossessed,” and “exploited” in American history to realize the freedom, liberty, and equality of opportunity promises contained in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
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p>Howard was courageous social and political critic in confronting the enmity or hollow rhetoric of authority figures seeking to suffocate social, economic, and political reform. He was as unflinching in his critiques of the shortcoming of liberals (e.g., FDR and Obama–presuming Obama is actually a liberal)as he was of reactionary conservatives (e.g., President Bush and the titular leader of Howard’s university, BU president, John Silber).
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p>One aspect about Howard that some obit writers have neglected to state, however, is the graciousness, consideration, and encouragement he consistently displayed towards history students, other history students, amateur and professional historians, and even his fellow patrons in the Newton Public Library. Howard was an incredibly generous person with his time and his advice when others would recognize him and stop by to ask questions about current events, history, or their career goals and aspirations. When I was in graduate school studying and struggling to be a historian, he took nearly an hour of his time to listen to my doubts and concerns about having a professional life in the academy, and offered some sage, empathetic professional advice that made my decision to abandon my graduate studies much easier.
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p>Yes, Howard Zinn was a path-breaking, first-class historian whose works essentially created a whole new field of historical exploration, which for ideological reasons had been ignored by professional historians. Yet, unlike most academics one meets today, Howard also could claim the well-deserved title of being “a mensch.” R.I.P., Howard.
As a budding historian myself I disagree with some of Zinn’s methods. I think one should pose a question and then let the facts answer them, I think Zinn too often relied on framing his question to allow his point of view to come across as fact and that does not make for great histories. As a social activist Zinn was one of the best. As an academic he was incredibly warm and personable, I remember when he came to speak at my high school (Cambridge Rindge and Latin), free of charge, on the eve of the Iraq War. While his speech was a bit too idealistic, he was convinced passive resistance would stop the drumbeat to war while six days later shock and awe started, it was what we needed to hear to get motivated to act. When he took questions he and I got into a lively debate over the morality of dropping the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and while we still disagreed, he was incredibly sincere in his pacifism and committed to his ideals, treated me like an adult and didn’t talk down to me, and said I made good arguments that might have been correct historically but he could not morally support deliberately attacking civilians, a position I could understand especially considering his own experience in WWII. He was a very humble and unassuming man, not the kind of arrogant leftist academic one sees caricatured by the right, although Cornel West and Chomsky certainly fit that role, who was always reluctant to have draw attention to himself. At another anti-war rally, three years later on the Boston Common, he was reluctant to get up and speak when someone identified him in the vast crowd and invited him to come up. He gave a few quick remarks about how eventually the country would come around and the war would end. Always humble and idealistic in spite of many reasons not to be, Zinn was a class act all the way.
Having seen him speak dozens of times, his humanity and sense of humor always shone through.