Last week I was sitting at the cultural epicenter Old School Pizzeria, jamming some 1942 in the front window, a few days away from one of my biggest interviews. In the five years or so since I was first introduced to the seedy, disgusting world of "professional journalism" I've been fortunate enough to swoop on some good assignments. I've got to talk to Neil DeGrasse Tyson about our favorite sci-fi movies and 9/11. I've had Amy Goodman call my phone for nine minutes of her time and caught her with a good one-liner. In all actuality, Weekly Volcano editor Matt Driscoll actually has a head on his shoulders, however fiendishly twisted and Jay Cutler-hating it is. He's assigned me some great stories, even if there is nothing on Earth like Denver Broncos fans. Nothing.
When Driscoll texted me "Never mind the Zinn assignment. He died today." I didn't believe it. Certainly something had gotten to him in the "Las Vegas of Meth" they call Lakewood. Perhaps the Winter Olympics fever had gripped him, maybe he won big on the X Games.
He replied, "Wouldn't joke about something like that," and I knew it to be true.
Howard Zinn was about as polarizing and famous as a historian could be. A singularly-rare and rowdy entity, unabashedly proud to be a rebel and a radical, Zinn loved pushing buttons and challenging authority. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once called "a polemicist, not a historian." When chided as presenting an unreal and one-sided view of history, Zinn completely agreed. That was the whole point.
"If you look at history from the perspective of the slaughtered and mutilated, it's a different story," he said.
Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants from the slums of Brooklyn, understood that well, having learned first hand the horror of war much like Kurt Vonnegut, right there at the frontline of World War II. Zinn was himself a bombardier in the 490th, dropping bombs in Berlin and Eastern Europe. When the war ended, he worked odd jobs before going to college on the GI Bill. Returning to the sites of his bombings on a doctoral research trip, he learned that many of his bombing runs near the end were on friendly civilian populations, misreported, and generally non-essential, rather having been ordered by higher-ups striving for promotions.
He later became a professor at Spelman College, historically a black womens' college in Atlanta. A firm believer in the underdog, he joined with SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) as an advisor and participated in many protests, including sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. He was later fired for insubordination, and again he agreed he was guilty, with a smile. His students included Alice Walker, who authored The Color Purple, and Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Walker, in a touching reflection on learning of the passing of Zinn, wrote:
"I was Howard's student for only a semester, but in fact, I have learned from him all my life. His way with resistance: steady, persistent, impersonal, often with humor, is a teaching I cherish."
Zinn, a retired professor from Boston University, will be best remembered for his courageous re-telling of the rise of freedom and democracy in the America in his 1981 best-seller A People's History of The United States. The book explores an alternative version of American history, not from the conquerors and traditional heroes, but from those at the bottom of the struggle, a history buried underneath the bombs of traditional pomp and patriotism. He believed history should not just be remembered for the expansionist cowboys, but of the brave Native Americans who rose to fight against them, of the slaves against the slave-masters, anarchists against capitalists, feminists against the patriarchy. His alternative vision of our great nation provided a much-needed parallel view from the other end of the gun, something that wasn't (and to the chagrin of many today, still isn't) being told properly.
To say that it ruffled a few tail feathers would be an understatement. To say that it changed many a curriculum in high schools and universities, and helped a new generation establish a more balanced and accurate account of America would be a better statement.
On Jan. 27, Howard Zinn died of a heart attack, swimming in Santa Monica. He was scheduled to speak at The Evergreen State College in Olympia on Feb. 5. I'm really bummed that I didn't get the chance to speak to this great man, but we'll always be able to check out his books, to read his wisdom, and to take his courage with us and try to put a little bit of it in our lives. Godspeed Professor Zinn, tarry well into the good night.