Howard Zinn dies at 87

[Communist]

Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered

Thursday 28 January 2010
by: Henry A. Giroux


In 1977 I took my first job in higher education at
Boston University. One reason I went there was because
Howard Zinn was teaching there at the time. As a high
school teacher, Howard's book, "Vietnam: the Logic of
Withdrawal," published in 1968, had a profound effect
on me. Not only was it infused with a passion and sense
of commitment that I admired as a high school teacher
and tried to internalize as part of my own pedagogy,
but it captured something about the passion, sense of
commitment and respect for solidarity that came out of
Howard's working-class background. It offered me a
language, history and politics that allowed me to
engage critically and articulate my opposition to the
war that was raging at the time.

I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and rarely met
or read any working-class intellectuals. After reading
James Baldwin, hearing William Kunstler and Stanley
Aronowitz give talks, I caught a glimpse of what it
meant to occupy such a fragile, contradictory and often
scorned location. But reading Howard gave me the
theoretical tools to understand more clearly how the
mix of biography, cultural capital and class location
could be finely honed into a viable and laudable
politics.

Later, as I got to know Howard personally, I was able
to fill in the details about his working-class
background and his intellectual development. We had
grown up in similar neighborhoods, shared a similar
cultural capital and we both probably learned more from
the streets than we had ever learned in formal
schooling. There was something about Howard's
fearlessness, his courage, his willingness to risk not
just his academic position, but also his life, that
marked him as special - untainted by the often
corrupting privileges of class entitlement.

Before I arrived in Boston to begin teaching at Boston
University, Howard was a mythic figure for me and I was
anxious to meet him in real life. How I first
encountered him was perfectly suited to the myth. While
walking to my first class, as I was nearing the
university, filled with the trepidation of teaching a
classroom of students, I caught my fist glimpse of
Howard. He was standing on a box with a bullhorn in
front of the Martin Luther King memorial giving a talk
calling for opposition to Silber's attempt to undermine
any democratic or progressive function of the
university. The image so perfectly matched my own
understanding of Howard that I remember thinking to
myself, this has to be the perfect introduction to such
a heroic figure.

Soon afterwards, I wrote him a note and rather
sheepishly asked if we could meet. He got back to me in
a day; we went out to lunch soon afterwards, and a
friendship developed that lasted over 30 years. While
teaching at Boston University, I often accompanied
Howard when he went to high schools to talk about his
published work or his plays. I sat in on many of his
lectures and even taught one of his graduate courses.
He loved talking to students and they were equally
attracted to him. His pedagogy was dynamic, directive,
focused, laced with humor and always open to dialog and
interpretation. He was a magnificent teacher, who
shredded all notions of the classroom as a place that
was as uninteresting as it was often irrelevant to
larger social concerns. He urged his students not just
to learn from history, but to use it as a resource to
sharpen their intellectual prowess and hone their civic
responsibilities.

Howard refused to separate what he taught in the
university classroom, or any forum for that matter,
from the most important problems and issues facing the
larger society. But he never demanded that students
follow his own actions; he simply provided a model of
what a combination of knowledge, teaching and social
commitment meant. Central to Howard's pedagogy was the
belief that teaching students how to critically
understand a text or any other form of knowledge was
not enough. They also had to engage such knowledge as
part of a broader engagement with matters of civic
agency and social responsibility. How they did that was
up to them, but, most importantly, they had to link
what they learned to a self-reflective understanding of
their own responsibility as engaged individuals and
social actors.

He offered students a range of options. He wasn't
interested in molding students in the manner of
Pygmalion, but in giving them the widest possible set
of choices and knowledge necessary for them to view
what they learned as an act of freedom and empowerment.
There is a certain poetry in his pedagogical style and
scholarship and it is captured in his belief that one
can take a position without standing still. He captured
this sentiment well in a comment he made in his
autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving
Train." He wrote:

"From the start, my teaching was infused with my own
history. I would try to be fair to other points of
view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted
students to leave my classes not just better informed,
but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence,
more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice
wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for
trouble."

In fact, Howard was under constant attack by John
Silber, then president of Boston University, because of
his scholarship and teaching. One expression of that
attack took the form of freezing Howard's salary for
years.

Howard loved watching independent and Hollywood films
and he and I and Roz [Howard's wife] saw many films
together while I was in Boston. I remember how we
quarreled over "Last Tango in Paris." I loved the film,
but he disagreed. But Howard disagreed in a way that
was persuasive and instructive. He listened, stood his
ground, and, if he was wrong, often said something
like, "O.K., you got a point," always accompanied by
that broad and wonderful smile.

What was so moving and unmistakable about Howard was
his humility, his willingness to listen, his refusal of
all orthodoxies and his sense of respect for others. I
remember once when he was leading a faculty strike at
BU in the late 1970s and I mentioned to him that too
few people had shown up. He looked at me and made it
very clear that what should be acknowledged is that
some people did show up and that was a beginning. He
rightly put me in my place that day - a lesson I never
forgot.

Howard was no soppy optimist, but someone who believed
that human beings, in the face of injustice and with
the necessary knowledge, were willing to resist,
organize and collectively struggle. Howard led the
committee organized to fight my firing by Silber. We
lost that battle, but Howard was a source of deep
comfort and friendship for me during a time when I had
given up hope. I later learned that Silber, the
notorious right-wing enemy of Howard and anyone else on
the left, had included me on a top-ten list of
blacklisted academics at BU. Hearing that I shared that
list with Howard was a proud moment for me. But Howard
occupied a special place in Silber's list of enemies,
and he once falsely accused Howard of arson, a charge
he was later forced to retract once the charge was
leaked to the press.

Howard was one of the few intellectuals I have met who
took education seriously. He embraced it as both
necessary for creating an informed citizenry and
because he rightly felt it was crucial to the very
nature of politics and human dignity. He was a deeply
committed scholar and intellectual for whom the line
between politics and life, teaching and civic
commitment collapsed into each other.

Howard never allowed himself to be seduced either by
threats, the seductions of fame or the need to tone
down his position for the standard bearers of the new
illiteracy that now populates the mainstream media. As
an intellectual for the public, he was a model of
dignity, engagement and civic commitment. He believed
that addressing human suffering and social issues
mattered, and he never flinched from that belief. His
commitment to justice and the voices of those expunged
from the official narratives of power are evident in
such works as his monumental and best-known book, "A
People's History of the United States," but it was also
evident in many of his other works, talks, interviews
and the wide scope of public interventions that marked
his long and productive life. Howard provided a model
of what it meant to be an engaged scholar, who was
deeply committed to sustaining public values and a
civic life in ways that linked theory, history and
politics to the everyday needs and language that
informed everyday life. He never hid behind a firewall
of jargon, refused to substitute irony for civic
courage and disdained the assumption that working-class
and oppressed people were incapable of governing
themselves.

Unlike so many public relations intellectuals today, I
never heard him interview himself while talking to
others. Everything he talked about often pointed to
larger social issues, and all the while, he completely
rejected any vestige of political and moral purity. His
lack of rigidity coupled with his warmness and humor
often threw people off, especially those on the left
and right who seem to pride themselves on their often
zombie-like stoicism. But, then again, Howard was not a
child of privilege. He had a working-class sensibility,
though hardly romanticized, and sympathy for the less
privileged in society along with those whose voices had
been kept out of the official narratives as well as a
deeply felt commitment to solidarity, justice, dialogue
and hope. And it was precisely this great sense of
dignity and generosity in his politics and life that
often moved people who shared his company privately or
publicly. A few days before his death, he sent me an
email commenting on something I had written for
Truthout about zombie politics. (It astonishes me that
this will have been the last correspondence. Even at my
age, the encouragement and support of this man, this
towering figure in my life, meant such a great deal.)
His response captures something so enduring and moving
about his spirit. He wrote:

"Henry, we are in a situation where mild rebuke, even
critiques we consider 'radical' are not sufficient.
(Frederick Douglass' speech on the Fourth of July in
1852, thunderously angry, comes close to what is
needed). Raising the temperature of our language, our
indignation, is what you are doing and what is needed.
I recall that Sartre, close to death, was asked: 'What
do you regret?' He answered: 'I wasn't radical
enough.'"

I suspect that Howard would have said the same thing
about himself. And maybe no one can ever be radical
enough, but Howard came close to that ideal in his
work, life and politics. Howard's death is especially
poignant for me because I think the formative culture
that produced intellectuals like him is gone. He leaves
an enormous gap in the lives of many thousands of
people who knew him and were touched by the reality of
the embodied and deeply felt politics he offered to all
of us. I will miss him, his emails, his work, his smile
and his endearing presence. Of course, he would frown
on such a sentiment, and with a smile would more than
likely say, "do more than mourn, organize." Of course,
he would be right, but maybe we can do both.

Editor's Note: Howard Zinn and Henry A. Giroux not only
shared a long personal friendship but also many
professional and political connections. Henry A. Giroux
recently joined the Truthout Board of Directors. Howard
Zinn was a member of Truthout's Board of Advisors and
his comments and suggestions about our work will be
greatly missed by all of us.

Creative Commons License

_____________________________________________

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[Communist]

Honoring Howard Zinn:

===
1.
Excerpt from "Interview with Howard Zinn "Socialism without Jails."

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/zinn280110.html

Q. What do you want to be remembered for?

If I want to be remembered for anything, it's for
introducing a different way of thinking about the
world, about war, about human rights, about equality,
for getting more and more people to think that way, and
also for getting more people to realize that power,
which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth
and guns, ultimately rests on people themselves, and
they can use it, and 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. What I want to be
remembered as is somebody who gave people a feeling of
hope and power that they didn't have before. Howard
Zinn, 1922-2010.

===
2.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010
From: William Wharton
Subject: On the Death of Howard Zinn
The death of Howard Zinn is a great loss to socialists
across the world. Zinn's life work as a people's
historian offered a shining example of scholarship with
relevance for everyday life. Equally important, was
the joyous life energy he exuded while supporting a
wide variety of progressive causes. When called to
speak at marches, teach-ins and rallies Howard Zinn
would appear - armed only with the powerful message
that when regular people struggle for justice,
something good might happen. Zinn's death is a call
for new people to push forward his project to create a
world based on solidarity, compassion and justice. We
will miss you Howard Zinn and we will advance the
struggle in your name.

Billy Wharton
co-chair, Socialist Party USA
http://socialistparty-usa.org/

===
3.

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010
From: Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Subject: Howard Zinn's last advice to America - and to me

Howard Zinn's last advice to America - and to me:

A Broad Coalition for Independence From the
Corporations & the Military

Dear shalom-pursuer,
Tuesday morning -- just two days ago -- I wrote half a
dozen leaders of progressive thought and action in
America, each separately, the letter that follows. One
of the people I wrote was the historian /activist
Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United
States, whom I have known for 45 years or so. He
responded just 90 minutes later, and his response is
also below.

All day yesterday I was meeting with doctors who
cleared away the last of my medical barriers to travel
and to risking arrest in nonviolent civil-disobedience
actions. I intended this morning, Thursday morning, to
write Howard back to ask how to follow up on his
comments.

But I can't. Howard died yesterday, at 87. He was one
of the wisest, gentlest, drily good-humored of
progressive thinkers and activists. The best of the
America he celebrated in his bottom-up history, in
which the energies and currents of Blacks, of workers,
of women, of religious minorities, of war resisters,
were the center -- not Presidents and Senators.

After I share with you this last exchange I'll be able
to have with him --perhaps the last commentary he made
on the American political scene -- I'll share two
stories - one long ago that has stayed lit up for me
all these years, and one very recent.

This is what I wrote him Tuesday morning:

Dear Howard, 28; 28; It seems to me that the
confluence of massive disemployment, plus knee-jerk
militarism, plus stalemate on the climate crisis and on
health care, plus the Supreme Court decision on
corporate financing of elections, plus the use of the
filibuster in the Senate -- all in what many assumed
or hoped would be a year of major progressive change
-- has shocked enough people that it should, and might,
make possible a progressive coalition.

I'm imagining a coalition aimed at "independence from
the military-corporate alliance," with a platform that
includes strong planks on climate, jobs, health, ending
the present wars, major reductions in the military,
transforming campaign finance, and ending the
filibuster.

28; 28;Perhaps with rallies, vigils, sit-downs, etc in
state capitals and other centers all around the country
on July 4, and support for specific progressive
candidates in the 2010 Congressional elections . 28; Do
you think this would make sense? 28; 28;How would it be
possible to begin shaping such a coalition? 28;
28;Shalom, salaam, shantih --- peace, Arthur ^^^^^^^^
And this letter back from Howard:

Arthur, you are absolutely right, this is the time for
the resurgence of a national movement that begins with
a co-ordinated country-wide action.

The theme you describe, "independence from the
military-corporation" is one that all sorts of people
and groups can unite around. I believe millions,
probably tens of millions of people are ready for this
because there is little left of the early euphoria
that greeted Obama's election.

A huge job to organize it, but it was done for
Mobilization Day Oct.15,1969, and without the advantage
of the Internet.

Someone or some group that is respected throughout the
progressive movement would need to take the initiative
and summon supporters. With blacks, Latinos, women
prominent, and not disdaining celebrities. I think of
Julian Bond, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez, Cindy Sheehan,
Harry Belafonte, Matt Damon, Oprah, Alice Walker,
Marian Wright Edelman -- some well-known clergy, you
and others, some labor leaders. Maybe not that exact
group, but just to suggest a direction. And a few
super-organizers.


I'm not up for organizing these days, maybe for
consultation, and whatever help I can give.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I was going to write
Howard today to ask whether he'd invite some of those
people and a few others to meet to talk about the
possibilities.

Now -- is it possible to see those few words as a kind
of legacy that we can turn into a new chapter of the
"people's history"?

Two stories: In the mid-'60s, Howard spoke at some
gathering in Washington about the Vietnam War. He said
that most of the time, the American people - any people
- walks around in the dark, bumping blindly into
extremely dangerous and hurtful objects -- wars,
depressions, racism, drug epidemics, police violence .
Literally blind-sided, again and again.

But occasionally, some event would become a lightning
flash, illuminating the structures of power behind
these disasters. He said Vietnam had become a
lightning flash. We were for the first time seeing the
connections between the universities and the military,
we were seeing the way children were channeled from
their earliest years (without regard to their
intelligence or creativity) into becoming factory
workers, or unemployed, or lawyers, or ...

And our job, he said, was to try to turn these
lightning flashes into steady light, to help a whole
society keep seeing the truth about itself.

And just last month, late December: I had sent out an
essay in a satirical vein, pointing up the absurdity of
the way Washington is carrying on the Afghanistan war
in order to defeat "terrorism."
Several folks wrote or called to tell me they didn't
think humor, even or especially bitter humor, was
appropriate in talking about a war. I felt dismayed,
unsettled, dispirited.

Then I got this note from Howard:

" Dear Art, A friend of mine just sent me this piece
you wrote -- satiric, powerful -- about Detroit, Islam,
Kabul, terrorism. It is a brilliant commentary and I
have passed it on to a number of people. Thank you for
it . I wish you a peaceful and joyful New Year.
Howard"

So -- dear Howard, I'm not so sure about "brilliant,"
but I'm glad you felt the humor had some bite where our
rulers need to be bitten. You revived my spirits.

And -- dear dear Howard, I wish you a joyful New Year
making trouble for the Authorities in Heaven. If ever
the memories, the teachings, of a tzaddik - a
practitioner of tzedek, justice - could bring blessing
to those who are still scrabbling for justice on this
stricken earth, it's the memories and teachings you
left us.

- peace! Arthur

_____________________________________________

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Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.[/FONT]

[Kibbutznik]

If Howard Zinn's epitaph is be anything, let it be "I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes yet won"

We will miss your wisdom, dear friend, but we'll cherish your legacy as we move forward.

[punisa]

Since this is the appropriate topic, I'd like to share with you a song I wrote just now as a tribute to Howard Zinn called "So long Mr. Zinn", if you want you can listen/watch it over here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIqnm5rnNoI

[Pawn Power]

I am pretty confident that Howard Zinn would echo my comment of; "Don't mourn. Organize!"


Get off the interweb and start agitating. And if you already are, do it some more.

Howard Zinn would provide no excuses for not organizing in your communities.

[Martin Blank]

At One with History
Dr. Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

Working People's Advocate
Monday, February 1, 2010

It is with great sadness that we learned last Wednesday of the passing of Dr. Howard Zinn at age 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack during a trip to California to visit friends. He was in Santa Monica at the time of his passing.

Zinn was from the third wave of radical intellectuals that emerged in the American political landscape in the 20th century. More than that, though, he was one of the few who remained overtly radical throughout his entire life.

Born in New York City into a working-class Jewish immigrant family. His father, Edward, was a waiter and his mother, Jennie, was a housewife. Before entering New York University at 27, he had worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in many of the warehouses that lined the shores of New York at the time.

During the Second World War, Zinn served in the Army Air Force as a bombardier on B-17 and B-24 planes.

He received his bachelor’s degree in history from NYU, and his master’s and doctorate from Columbia University.

Zinn first became known after becoming chair of the history department at Spelman College, an historically African American women’s college in Atlanta. It was there that Zinn became politically active, participating in the non-violent civil rights movement.

In 1964, Zinn became a professor at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement from teaching in 1988.

During that time, Zinn was active in the movement against the Vietnam War, as well as in local labor and social struggles. It was also during this time that he began writing a number of books.

From 1959 to 1990, Zinn wrote a number of books about politics and history. By far, though, his most well-known and enduring book is A People’s History of the United States. Published first in 1980, and in numerous editions since, People’s History represents a microcosm of Zinn as an historian and political thinker.

Zinn sought to provide readers with what fellow historian John Henrik Clarke called the “other half of history” — the part you don’t get from the “official” textbooks and monographs.

While People’s History at times does this by bending the stick too far in the opposite direction of his “official” colleagues, Zinn’s book remains required reading for anyone who wants to know more about that “other half of history.”

But Zinn, as someone of working-class origins cast into the world of “middle class” academia, also knew his audience. More to the point, he knew the class character of those who would most likely be reading his books and attending his lectures, and he did not shy away from calling them what they were: the “guards” of the capitalist system.

His own class instincts told him where the “middle class” was in American capitalist society. And whether it was naiveté or wishful thinking, Zinn pleaded with them to consider carefully and consciously their future directions — to ask themselves which side they are on.

But now the man who sought to bring his love of history to future generations of his class and society as a whole is at one with his medium. He belongs to the history he was so passionate about, cared for so deeply and, most of all, understood is not something to passively watch, but rather is something we as human beings make through our actions.

We lower our banners in honor of someone many of us were privileged to call comrade and friend, colleague and teacher. And the one thing we can do most to honor his memory is to make good on the historic promise of a better future made by working-class people.

Central Committee of the Workers Party in America
January 30, 2010

[Red Subverter]

FUCK!

This is going to make me cry. Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States radicalized me.
We have lost a true comrade
RIP