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Remembering Mahatma Zinn
Howard Zinn was above all a gentleman of unflagging grace, humility and compassion.
No American historian has left a more lasting positive legacy on our understanding of the true nature of our country, mainly because his books reflect a soul possessed of limitless depth.
Howard's People's History of the United States will not be surpassed. As time goes on new chapters will be written in its spirit to extend its reach.
But his timeless masterpiece broke astonishing new ground both in its point of view and its comprehensive nature. The very idea of presenting the American story from the point of view of the common citizen was itself revolutionary. That he pulled it off with such apparent ease and readability borders on the miraculous. That at least a million Americans have bought and read it means that its ongoing influence is immense. It is truly a history book that has and will continue to change history for the better.
But that doesn't begin to account for Howard's personal influence. He was a warm, unfailingly friendly compadre. He shared a beautiful partnership with his wonderful wife, Roz, a brilliant, thoroughly committed social worker about whom he once said: "You and I just talk about changing the world. She actually does it."
But Howard was no ivory tower academic. His lectures were engaging, exciting and inspirational. But they took on an added dimension because he was personally engaged, committed and effective. He chose to write books and articles in ways that could impact the world in which they were published. He showed up when he was needed, and always had a sixth sense about exactly what to say, and how.
Perhaps the most meaningful tribute to pay this amazing man is to say how he affected us directly. Here are two stories I know intimately:
In 1974, my organic commune-mate Sam Lovejoy toppled a weather tower as a protest against the coming of a nuclear power plant. When Sam needed someone to testify on how this act of civil disobedience fit into the fabric of our nation's history, Howard did not hesitate. His testimony in that Springfield, Massachusetts courtroom (see "Lovejoy's Nuclear War" via www.gmpfilms.com) remains a classic discourse on the sanctity of non-violent direct action and its place in our national soul. (Sam was acquitted, and we stopped that nuke!)
Three years earlier I sent Howard a rambling 300-page manuscript under the absurdly presumptuous title A People's History of the United States, 1860-1920. Written in a drafty communal garage in the Massachusetts hills by a long-haired 20-something graduate school dropout, the manuscript had been rejected by virtually every publisher in America, often accompanied with nasty notes to the tune of: "NEVER send us anything like this again."
But I sent a copy to Howard, whom I had never met. He replied with a cordial note typed on a single sheet of yellow paper, which I still treasure. I showed it to Hugh Van Dusen at Harper & Row, who basically said Harper had no idea why anyone would ever read such a book, but that if Howard Zinn would write an introduction, they'd publish it (though under a more appropriate title).
He did, and they did...and my life was changed forever.
Thankfully, Hugh then had the good sense to ask Howard to write a real people's history by someone--the only one--who could handle the job. He did....and all our lives have been changed forever.
Howard labored long and hard on his masterpiece, always retaining that astonishing mixture of humor and humility that made him such a unique and irreplaceable treasure. No one ever wrote or spoke with a greater instinct for the True and Vital. His unfailing instinct for what is just and important never failed him--or us. The gentle, lilting sound of his voice put it all to unforgettable music that will resonate through the ages.
A few days ago I wrote Howard asking if he'd consider working on a film about the great Socialist labor leader Eugene V. Debs, whose story Howard's books have uniquely illuminated.
Eugene V. Debs was beloved by millions of Americans who treasured not only his clarity of a shared vision for this nation, but his unshakeable honesty and unquestioned integrity.
Debs ran five times for president. He conducted his last campaign from a federal prison cell in Atlanta, where he was locked up by Woodrow Wilson. He got a million votes (that we know of). "While there is a soul in prison," he said, unforgettably, "I am not free."
Debs had deeply shaken Wilson with his brilliant, immeasurably powerful opposition to America's foolish and unjust entry into World War I, and his demands for a society in which all fairly shared. In the course of his magnificent decades as our pre-eminent labor leader, Debs established a clear vision of where this nation could and should go for a just, sustainable future. Enshrined in Howard's histories, it remains a shining beacon of what remains to be done.
Through his decades as our pre-eminent people's historian, through his activism, his clarity and his warm genius, Howard Zinn was also an American Mahatma, a truly great soul, capable of affecting us all.
Like Eugene V. Debs, it is no cliché to say that Howard Zinn truly lives uniquely on at the core of our national soul. His People's History and the gift of his being just who he was, remains an immeasurable, irreplaceable treasure.
Thanks, Howard, for more than we can begin to say.
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20 Comments so far
Show AllSo THAT'S how People's History came about! Amazing.
Equally amazing is what Zinn did with People's History. He torn open a nasty scab on American history. Shown a light under a lot of rocks, and pissed off a bunch of establishment historians. Good for him!
He was a breath of fresh air that stirred the stuffy ivory tower of conventional history. And he enlightened maybe two million readers.
Gary
PS Check out http://www.howardzinn.org
"In 1676, seventy years after Virginia was founded, a hundred years before it supplied leadership for the American Revolution, that colony faced a rebellion of white frontiersmen, joined by slaves and servants, a rebellion so threatening that the governor had to flee the burning capital of Jamestown, and England decided to send a thousand soldiers across the Atlantic, hoping to maintain order among forty thousand colonists. This was Bacon's Rebellion...."
-- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980)
When will you be releasing the Eugene Debs film, Harvey?
One morning last week, a day or two after learning of Howard Zinn's passing, and just as I was surfacing from sleep to waking, I heard this spoken inside my self: "Imagine someone who did the right thing at every turn. Who always did the right thing." I had a deeper sense of the reality of this beyond just the words. And I pondered all this as I woke up. I read Howard Zinn's articles when I could find them posted. I am politically involved by heart and family history. My grandfather worked with Eugene Debs. Samuel Bailenson, my grandfather founded two garment unions himself, and wrote for the Forward. I knew Howard Zinn was one of the people alive who was not out for himself, who was wise and good, and all the other things that are well known about him. But I was touched to have heard those words. An inner life is a mystery. I do strive to do the right thing at every turn, though also know that I am very limited. I said to myself that morning, "Howard Zinn was a saint!" This came as a revelation. I felt less lonely. This certainly is the effect of a saint. Harvey, I wanted to tell you this. Helena
Just got started on "A People's History Of The United States", so far its been great and im sure it will educate me very much, even so I must say that I would have liked to ask the guy why does he refer to America (the continent) as "the Americas", empire indoctrination got to him somehow.
He also wrote that: "Then they looted the city and moved on. When their cavalcade of murder was over they were in Mexico City, Montezuma was dead, and the Aztec civilization, shattered, was in the hands of the Spaniards." (chapter 1) this is simply not so, Moctezuma was a host first and then prisoner of the spanish... so if he missed this there must be other factual errors in the book.
If you havent read the book here it is:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html
Or if you want lo hear the man get here and do a search:
www.radio4all.net
Or, maybe 400,000 readers, depending on how many students read the prescribed propaganda.
Well, there you go again. Can you honestly read any conventional American history textbook and claim that it's not biased? Has this country actually never ever made a mistake? Has all good change always started at the top?
"No more blood for oil"
TWO MILLION COPIES of People's History have been sold.
Gary
"The colonies, it seems, were societies of contending classes --a fact obscured by the emphasis, in traditional histories, on the external struggle against England, the unity of colonists in the Revolution. The country therefore was not "born free" but born slave and free, servant and master, tenant and landlord, poor and rich."
-- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980)
Howard Zinn is one unique historian that'll be hard to replace. When you train your students to think differently from the norm, you are pushing for change from the bottom-up. I think I had better take some time to read his books and see what I can do to improve those local progressive efforts.
Funny. Very few comments here. I guess nobody here cares about Howard Zinn unless you mention civil disobedience, huh?
It's kool. Howard Zinn is another man of peace which nobody can deny.
Peace
Since you indicated that you have not read him, how can you comment? You appear to disagree with much of what Howard stood for.
I said I didn't read his books that he wrote yet but that's not the same as reading some of his interviews and his biography which I can easily do with a simple google search. Wikipedia also gives an article on his life.
I am not sure I like the title caption, but I did like the article and learned something.
Zinn introduced me to Eugene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, Sacco and Vanzetti, Emma Goldman, Frederick Douglass, Joe Hill, and many examples of Native Americans, African Americans, working class whites, etc. that are mostly ignored by ivory tower bourgeois academic historians.
Howard focused largely on the 90% of the people from history, not the top 10%, 5% or 1%. He is truly the people's historian in every sense of the word.
harvey wasserman
not to worry about the number of comments. there have been a LOT of pieces published about howard, which is very gratifying. when he first passed away i rushed to write something but then saw how many there were and felt really good. he really touched a lot of people.
helena, your feeling about him is understandable. he did have an extraordinary calm and good will about him that we've seen in very very few people. and he touched so many!
thank you, commondreams.org, for publishing and so many other tributes to this wonderful man!!!
Sioux Rose
HARVEY: You demonstrate a lovely modesty in downplaying the synchronicity of your sending the manuscript that led to his writing THE BIG work! It reminds me of Steven Speilberg jumping over the fence to a Hollywood lot; and how that gesture eventually led to his getting some of his amateur films viewed. Evidence that the small bold act can sometimes be THE ONE that starts a revolution in culture, consciousness, or actual events.
Thank you for touching this important man's life and being profoundly touched in return. We are all the better for it. (And send my regards to your wife.)
I'm very touched. Zinn was a great man and will always be an important voice for the people. So is Harvey Wasserman.
It is really sad that Howard Zinn is no more. I really enjoyed his book "A People's History Of The United States". I recently bought a copy of the book "A People's History of American Empire (American Empire Project)" which is comic strip version of his classic book, so that I can get my future children started on the real US history when they are young.
Though I admire Howard a lot, I felt that Zinn was wrong in portraying the Native Americans as Noble Savages. Were they really a peaceful people? I think not. Of course that does not lessen the horror that was the euro-imperialist genocide against these hapless people. Though Howard alludes to this point he does not make it explicitly clear.
Did any of Howard's readers feel the same?
Zinn didn't really make American indians out to be Noble Savages. He did point out that while many Europeans ran away to join indian tribes while almost no indians ran away to join the Europeans. Speaks for itself.
He wrote about how much indian life contrasted with what it was really like for most people in Europe and then in European America. The role of women, for example, was crucial in indian life, unlike in European life.
He certainly pointed out indians waged war among themselves and were savage toward the European invaders after they were attacked by them.
Gary
"The Indians certainly did not want war, but they matched atrocity with atrocity. When it was over, in 1676, the English had won, but their resources were drained; they had lost six hundred men. Three thousand Indians were dead, including Metacom himself. Yet the Indian raids did not stop."
-- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980)
Probably the principal "cultural-economic" and subsequent war-clash of Indian tribes and the European newcomers centered on the property of land and not on massacres. Legend has it that the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the Indians. Nonsense. Indians did sometimes share the land on which they lived, but which they did not "own" in our sense, with other tribes. In the case of Manhattan they agreed to share the island with the strange "Dutch tribe" that had come in ships across the sea and provided them with abundant wampum in exchange for beaver pelts. The Dutch paid for the privilege to live among the Indians on Manhattan. In fact, even after the so-called "sale" Indians continued to live among the Dutch settlers, even on their own so-called "private properties". Whereas one of the stupid Dutch (temporary) Governors massacred Indians on the Island, the major Indian anger was due to the "eviction" from land which they still considered to be their living space too.
These Indians were neither inherently noble nor inherently savages but a very interesting, diverse, and mature community from which the European invaders ultimately failed to learn anything about preserving nature.
Thanks, Harvey Wasserman. I've always enjoyed your writing. Back in 1997, longtime activist and Chicago 7 defendant Dave Dellinger, who had spoken at the Athens Human Rights Festival earlier that year, invited me to Washington to attend a birthday party for Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and antiwar author of "Born on the Fourth of July." At the party in the nation's capital I met Howard Zinn and we began a long friendship by letters and emails. I'm an opinion columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald (onlineathens.com), the daily newspaper here in Athens, Georgia, and I had the honor of interviewing Howard Zinn for the April 4, 2004 edition of the paper when he spoke in Athens almost six years ago. The interview also appeared in the June 2004 issue of Z Magazine. Zinn has been quoted in many of my articles over the years and my final tribute to him appeared in the Athens paper's Jan. 31 edition just a few days after Zinn died. The homepage of my website, www.edtant.com, has a photo of Zinn and me taken by my wife, Joy, in 2004. On the site's "Demonstrations 1976-1999" photo page, there is a photo I took of Zinn and Dellinger at Kovic's birthday party in Washington. Both men are smiling broadly and both are missed by all who knew them or were affected by their long lives lived for peace and justice. Thanks for the memories, Harvey Wasserman!
ED TANT
Athens, GA
www.edtant.com
Wasserman's article bears the title, "Remembering Mahatma Zinn." Huh? Is this a new name conjured for Howard Zinn by Wasserman--or whoever writes the titles on CD--from Mahatma Gandhi? If so, how to reconcile Howard Zinn's anti-imperialism with Gandhi's imperialist attitude toward Kashmir?
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Mahatma-Gandhi-Stalled-Kashmirs-Independence&id=1552838
I still believe that as a historian Mr. Zinn stands in the shadow of giant W. E. B. DuBois.