In high school when our textbooks were so few we could not take them home everyday, my classmates and I passed copies of A People's History of the United States around like joints. We did not understand all that we read but we knew it was the truth and what we learned in class was bullshit. Zinn inspired my generation to read and seek the truth. He made us hate the history of " the Rich White Man is always Right" and learn that working people make history everyday and its worth learning and...repeating.
Howard Zinn a great history passed away in Santa Monica today of a heart attack. He was 87. Zinn was a military veteran of the Second World War. During this war he met socialists who were in the army and influenced his ideas. Zinn has been claimed by political people to be a socialist, anarchist and feminist alike although I would say he was an anti-capitalist above anything else. Zinn was active in his union at Boston University. According to Boston.com He was the co-chairman of the strike committee and lead a walk-out of professors in 1979. When he and four other co-workers refused to cross the picket line because the secretaries were still on strike he was charged with violating the contract. Because of a fight back campaign against the "BU five" began charges were dropped.
Zinn worked at Spelman College an historically Black women's college in Atlanta, Georgia. Alice Walker was one of his students. Zinn was on the executive committe of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Zinn until his death tirelessly defended working people, women, Black people, Latino people, poor whites, the imprisoned, the oppressed. He has inspired hundreds of thousands around the world and left a legacy of revolutionary minded readers and those of us who want to add to the pages of united struggle against Capitalism.
RIP- We'll miss you.
PRESENTE! Howard Zinn
No comments:
Post a Comment