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The Passing of a Great Man

One of my most cherished heroes died yesterday: Professor Howard Zinn. I feel such a sense of loss over his passing and, at the same time, feel grateful that I got to be alive for a good long time while he was. I so wanted to meet him in person. The way I’ll honor his memory for the rest of my life is that I will urge people—especially young people—to read his books.

I became aware of his People’s History of the United States in the early 1980s, around the time that I was already beginning to get an education in the real US history from Native Americans. Howard Zinn was the first historian who had the courage to tell the stories of people who before him had never received the attention of historians, who taught us about the “countless small actions of unknown people” whose acts of resistance to social injustice inspired others and created movements that change conditions for the better.

I had heard of other World War II veterans, whose lives had been saved by French villagers, who went back to that village after the war to thank people, but Howard Zinn was the first veteran from that war I knew of, who went to see the village that he and his crew had been ordered to bomb around the time the European war was ending, to find out what happened to them. That’s an unusual and admirable thing to do.

The way he carried himself throughout his life, his sweetness, his kindness, and his humorous and memorable ways of telling stories can serve as lessons for us all. He was passionate, but he was never bitter, and he never let us forget that we have more power than we think we do. But we do have to speak up—as he did, right to the end of his life.

January 28th, 2010 | Category: Heroes

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