Wednesday, January 27th 2010, was an interesting day for the literary world. As the president was preparing for his State of the Union address two literary giants passed away: J.D. Salinger died at 91 and Howard Zinn at the age of 87. Today I would like to remember one of my heroes.
Howard Zinn has been many things over the course of his life; he has published work in numerous magazines, been interviewed hundreds of times, and has over thirty books and three plays in print. Before that he was a bombardier during WWII, civil rights activist, anti-war activists, teacher, and historian. Each of these things was at the core of who he was, and each lead him toward the next. As a bombardier, he flew in the first campaign that used napalm. It was when he revisited the napalmed city of Pilsen, he discovered that official reports differed greatly from the stories that he heard from survivors. This led to his life long quests to uncover the history below that of academia and to become vehemently anti-war.
When Zinn was a teacher at Spelman college, an all African-American Female college in Atlanta, he encouraged his students toward activism. He was a mentor to well-known authors and advocates, Alice Walker and Marian Edelman. He lost his job after siding with students who challenged Spelman. Afterwards, he became an opponent of U.S. occupation of Vietnam. He even went to Hanoi and successfully negotiated the release of three U.S. airmen. Along with his friend Noam Chomsky, he helped release the Pentagon Papers to the general public.
Perhaps what Howard Zinn is best known for is his 1980 publication of The People’s History of the United States. In it, he outlined an alternative history from that taught in high schools and colleges. He told the story of our nation from the perspective of the lowest classes: Native Americans, African Americans, women, laborers, children, and soldiers. He not only told the winning stories of history but those stories of the losers at different transitional points in our history. Since it’s original publication, The People’s History has sold over one million copies.
In one of his last interviews he said he’d like to be remembered “for introducing a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality,” and “for getting more people to realize that the power which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns, that the power ultimately rests in people themselves and that they can use it. At certain points in history, they have used it. Black people in the South used it. People in the women’s movement used it. People in the anti-war movement used it. People in other countries who have overthrown tyrannies have used it.”
–Thomas Smith
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