When I turned 18, the summer before going off to college, my dad gave me a book titled A People's History of the United States: 1942-Present. Inside, he had inscribed: "Official Histories are always written from the point of view of the winner--this one isn't." I didn't think much of it at the time, and I certainly didn't read it right away. However, once I started writing papers for History, Sociology and Ethnic Studies classes, it quickly became my most valuable resource. This was a history book that challenged the status quo, exposed the US Government for its many atrocities throughout the years and told the stories of those on the other end of those atrocities--the people who dared to fight for their rights.
Howard Zinn, the author of that groundbreaking and controversial history book, passed away recently at 87 years old. In addition to being a writer and historian, he was an activist, a professor and a true believer in social change. Zinn's strong beliefs were shaped by his experiences, as is evident in his fascinating memoir, You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train. The child of immigrant parents, Zinn grew up poor in the slums of Brooklyn during the Great Depression. It was there, inspired by his parents' struggle, the works of Charles Dickens and the radicals he befriended, that Zinn began to develop an acute sense of class consciousness.
Zinn was 20 years old when WWII broke out. He joined the Army Air Corps as a bombardier, eager to fight the fascists. Close to the war's end, he flew in an air raid on the French town of Royan, dropping bombs containing, as he later discovered, an early form of napalm. The realization of what he had taken part in was, as Zinn puts it, "crucial in my gradual rethinking of what I had once accepted without question--the absolute morality of the war against fascism." Also during WWII Zinn met and married the love of his life, Roslyn Shechter, with whom he had two children.
Zinn attended New York University on the G.I. Bill and then received his masters from Columbia. In 1956, he was hired as a professor at the all-black, female-only Spellman College in Atlanta, where he not only taught, but helped make history. Zinn became a member of the executive committee for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's. He mentored, and organized alongside many amazing women, including Marian Wright and Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple). Of Walker's first essay for his class, he wrote, "Not only had I never read a paper by an undergraduate written with such critical intelligence, but I had rarely read a literary essay of such style and grace by anyone."
Fired from Spellman for being "insubordinate" due to his involvement in and encouragement of student activism, Zinn took a job at Boston University, later becoming an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and more recently, both wars in Iraq. He also was a playwright, most notably writing Emma on the life of anarchist-feminist activist Emma Goldman. Along with A People's History, Zinn has written several books on war, activism, and the profession of history itself.
Zinn provided an opportunity to relearn US history from the perspective of the underdog. A People's History is full of accounts from people who have been generally ignored by traditional sources. In it we find Native American chief Powhatan's appeal to John Smith to end the ruthless slaughter of his people, and IWW labor organizer Joe Hill's final note to a friend before being murdered in jail by government officials, urging him "Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." Zinn had faith in the possibility of social change because he saw it happen with his own eyes. His belief was that even the smallest of actions by the (seemingly) least influential people can lead to change in an unjust system.
Of course Zinn had a message for this generation. In You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train, he explains what he believes to be "the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience." His vision for the United States, as imparted in the last chapter of A People's History was for us to make a fundamental change in our foreign policy and direct the billions of dollars spent on military towards improving conditions at home and helping in other parts of the world. He felt that "The United States, by such a drastic change in its policies, would no longer be a military superpower, but it could be a humanitarian superpower, using its wealth to help people in need."
Zinn clearly was a visionary and some would call his vision unrealistic. But without imagination, there will never be change, and the first step to changing our circumstances is becoming informed and informing others. Zinn wrote in a 2005 column for The Progressive entitled "Changing Minds, One at a Time" that "...we all have an enormous responsibility to bring to the attention of others information they do not have, which has the potential of causing them to rethink long-held ideas." It is safe to say that Zinn has done just this.
by Jessica Bari
