Howard Zinn is an activist, historian and author who passed away recently. His work “A People’s History of the United States” changed the way I view history and reinforced the experience I had in college being a white girl studying African American Studies. History as we know it is told from the perspective of people who hold power. Therefore, what we know of as history is so so heavily edited that to presume it is true is to be naive.
“Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” documents Zinn’s life from childhood to the 1990s. It details his early years growing up in poverty and working in a shipyard. It shows of his time at war and then later his time protesting war. What makes Zinn so appealing is that he is not a man talking to the people. He truly is a man of the people. And he works hard to maintain that status, always willing to put his name on the line, his job, his status, his reputation.
I am sure there are people out there who are has magnetic and captivating as he, but when I learned a little more than a week ago of Zinn’s death it made my stomach drop. In part it was just me being selfish and wanting so badly to read the next edition of “A People’s History” (he would have had a field day with Bush… though he would have later had equal fun with Obama). But I also know that there is this whole generation who will need him to fill in the gap. To show that what they learn is school is only a small part of the story. That what the read isn’t everything.
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