A Memory of Howard Zinn

I just learned that my friend Howard Zinn died today. Earlier this morning, I was being interviewed by the Boston Phoenix, in connection with the release in Boston in February of a documentary in which he is featured prominently. The interviewer asked me who my own heroes were, and I had no hesitation in answering, first, “Howard Zinn.”

Just weeks ago after watching the film on December 7, I woke up the next morning thinking that I had never told him how much he meant to me. For once in my life, I acted on that thought in a timely way. I sent him an e-mail in which I said, among other things, what I had often told others about him: that he was,” in my opinion, the best human being I’ve ever known. The best example of what a human can be, and can do with their life.”

Our first meeting was at Faneuil Hall in Boston in early 1971, where we both spoke against the indictments of Eqbal Ahmad and Phil Berrigan for “conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger,” from which we marched with the rest of the crowd to make Citizens’ Arrests at the Boston office of the FBI. Later that spring we went with our affinity group (including Noam Chomsky, Cindy Fredericks, Marilyn Young, Mark Ptashne, Zelda Gamson, Fred Branfman and Mitch Goodman), to the Mayday actions blocking traffic in Washington (“If they won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government”). Howard tells that story in the film and I tell it at greater length in my memoir, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (pp.376-81). But for reasons of space, I had to cut out the next section in which Howard–who had been arrested in DC after most of the rest of us had gone elsewhere–came back to Boston for a rally and a blockade of the Federal Building. I’ve never published that story, so here it is, an out-take from my manuscript:

A day later, Howard Zinn was the last speaker at a large rally in Boston Common. I was at the back of a huge crowd, listening to him over loudspeakers. 27 years later, I can remember some things he said. “On Mayday in Washington thousands of us were arrested for disturbing the peace. But there is no peace. We were really arrested because we were disturbing the war.”

He said, “If Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton had been walking the streets of Georgetown yesterday, they would have been arrested. Arrested for being young.”

At the end of his comments he said, “I want to speak now to some of the members of this audience, the plainclothes policemen among us, the military intelligence agents who are assigned to do surveillance. You are taking the part of secret police, spying on your fellow Americans. You should not be doing what you are doing. You should rethink it, and stop. You do not have to carry out orders that go against the grain of what it means to be an American.”

Those last weren’t his exact words, but that was the spirit of them. He was to pay for that comment the next day, when we were sitting side by side in a blockade of the Federal Building in Boston. We had a circle of people all the way around the building, shoulder to shoulder, so no one could get in or out except by stepping over us. Behind us were crowds of people with posters who were supporting us but who hadn’t chosen to risk arrest. In front of us, keeping us from getting any closer to the main entrance to the building, was a line of policemen, with a large formation of police behind them. All the police had large plastic masks tilted back on their heads and they were carrying long black clubs, about four feet long, like large baseball bats. Later the lawyers told us that city police regulations outlawed the use of batons that long.

But at first the relations with the police were almost friendly. We sat down impudently at the very feet of the policemen who were guarding the entrance, filling in the line that disappeared around the sides until someone came from the rear of the building and announced over a bullhorn, “The blockade is complete. We’ve surrounded the building!” There was a cheer from the crowd behind us, and more people joined us in sitting until the circle was two or three deep.

We expected them to start arresting us, but for a while the police did nothing. They could have manhandled a passage through the line and kept it open for employees to go in or out, but for some reason they didn’t. We thought maybe they really sympathized with our protest, and this was their way of joining in. As the morning wore on, people took apples and crackers and bottles of water out of their pockets and packs and shared them around, and they always offered some to the police standing in front of us. The police always refused, but they seemed to appreciate the offer.

Then one of the officers came over to Howard and said, “You’re Professor Zinn, aren’t you?” Howard said yes, and the officer reached down and shook his hand enthusiastically. He said, “I heard you lecture at the Police Academy. A lot of us here did. That was a wonderful lecture.” Howard had been asked to speak to them about the role of dissent and civil disobedience in American history. Several other policemen came over to pay their respects to Howard and thank him for his lecture. The mood seemed quite a bit different from Washington.

Then a line of employees emerged from the building, wearing coats and ties or dresses. Their arms were raised and they were holding cards in their raised hands. As they circled past us they hold out the cards so we could see what they were: ID cards, showing they were federal employees. They were making the peace-sign with their other hands, they were circling around the building to show solidarity with what we were doing. Their spokesman said over a bullhorn, “We want this war to be over, too! Thank you for what you are doing! Keep it up.” Photographers, including police, were scrambling to take pictures of them, and some of them held up their ID cards so they would get in the picture. It was the high point of the day.

A little while after the employees had gone back inside the building, there was a sudden shift in the mood of the police. An order had been passed. The bloc of police in the center of the square got into tight formation and lowered their plastic helmets. The police standing right in front of us, over us, straightened up, adjusted their uniforms and lowered their masks. Apparently the time had come to start arrests. The supporters who didn’t want to be arrested fell back.

But there was no arrest warning. There was a whistle, and the line of police began inching forward, black batons raised upright. They were going to walk through us or over us, push us back. The man in front of us, who had been talking to Howard about his lecture a little earlier, muttered to us under his breath, “Leave! Now! Quick, get up.” He was warning, not menacing us.

Howard and I looked at each other. We’d come expecting to get arrested. It didn’t seem right to just get up and move because someone told us to, without arresting us. We stayed where we were. No one else left either. Boots were touching our shoes. The voice over our heads whispered intensely, “Move! Please. For God’s sake, move!” Knees in uniform pressed our knees. I saw a club coming down. I put my hands over my head, fists clenched, and a four-foot baton hit my wrist, hard. Another one hit my shoulder.

I rolled over, keeping my arms over my head, got up and moved back a few yards. Howard was being hauled off by several policemen. One had Howard’s arms pinned behind him, another had jerked his head back by the hair. Someone had ripped his shirt in two, there was blood on his bare chest. A moment before he had been sitting next to me and I waited for someone to do the same to me, but no one did. I didn’t see anyone else getting arrested. But no one was sitting anymore, the line had been broken, disintegrated. Those who had been sitting hadn’t moved very far, they were standing like me a few yards back, looking around, holding themselves where they’d been clubbed. The police had stopped moving. They stood in a line, helmets still down, slapping their batons against their hands. Their adrenaline was still up, but they were standing in place.

Blood was running down my hand, covering the back of my hand. I was wearing a heavy watch and it had taken the force of the blow. The baton had smashed the crystal and driven pieces of glass into my wrist. Blood was dripping off my fingers. Someone gave me a handkerchief to wrap around my wrist and told me to raise my arm. The handkerchief got soaked quickly and blood was running down my arm while I looked for a first-aid station that was supposed to be at the back of the crowd, in a corner of the square. I finally found it and someone picked the glass out of my arm and put a thick bandage around it.

I went back to the protest. My shoulder was aching. The police were standing where they had stopped, and the blockade had reformed, people were sitting ten yards back from where they had been before. There seemed to be more people sitting, not fewer. Many of the supporters had joined in. But it was quiet. No one was speaking loudly, no laughing. People were waiting for the police to move forward again. They weren’t expecting any longer to get arrested.

Only three or four people had been picked out of the line to be arrested before. The police had made a decision (it turned out) to arrest only the “leaders,” not to give us the publicity of arrests and trials. Howard hadn’t been an organizer of this action, he was just participating like the rest of us, but from the way they treated him when they pulled him out of the line, his comments directly to the police in the rally the day before must have rubbed someone the wrong way.

I found Roz Zinn, Howard’s wife, sitting in the line on the side at right angles to where Howard and I had been before. I sat down between her and their housemate, a woman her age. They had been in support before until they had seen what happened to Howard.

Looking at the police in formation, with their uniforms and clubs, guns on their hips, I felt naked. I knew that it was an illusion in combat to think you were protected because you were carrying a weapon, but it was an illusion that worked. For the first time, I was very conscious of being unarmed. At last, in my own country, I understood what a Vietnamese villager must have felt at what the Marines called a “county fair,” when the Marines rounded up everyone they could find in a hamlet–all women and children and old people, never draft- or VC-age young men–to be questioned one at a time in a tent, meanwhile passing out candy to the kids and giving vaccinations. Winning hearts and minds, trying to recruit informers. No one among the villagers knowing what the soldiers, in their combat gear, would do next, or which of them might be detained.

We sat and talked and waited for the police to come again. They lowered their helmets and formed up. The two women I was with were both older than I was. I moved my body in front of them, to take the first blows. I felt a hand on my elbow. “Excuse me, I was sitting there,” the woman who shared the Zinn’s house said to me, with a cold look. She hadn’t come there that day and sat down, she told me later, to be protected by me. I apologized and scrambled back, behind them.

No one moved. The police didn’t move, either. They stood in formation facing us, plastic masks over their faces, for quite a while. But they didn’t come forward again. They had kept open a passage in front for the employees inside to leave after five, and eventually the police left, and we left..

There was a happier story to tell, just over one month later. On Saturday night, June 12, 1971, we had a date with Howard and Roz to see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Harvard Square. But that morning I learned from someone at the New York Times that—without having alerted me—the Times was about to start publishing the top secret documents I had given them that evening. That meant I might get a visit from the FBI any moment; and for once, I had copies of the Papers in my apartment, because I planned to send them to Senator Mike Gravel for his filibuster against the draft.

From Secrets (p. 386):

“I had to get the documents out of our apartment. I called the Zinns, who had been planning to come by our apartment later to join us for the movie, and asked if we could come by their place in Newton instead. I took the papers in a box in the trunk of our car. They weren’t the ideal people to avoid attracting the attention of the FBI. Howard had been in charge of managing antiwar activist Daniel Berrigan’s movements underground while he was eluding the FBI for months (so from that practical point of view he was an ideal person to hide something from them), and it could be assumed that his phone was tapped, even if he wasn’t under regular surveillance. However, I didn’t know whom else to turn to that Saturday afternoon. Anyway, I had given Howard a large section of the study already, to read as a historian; he’d kept it in his office at Boston University. As I expected, they said yes immediately. Howard helped me bring up the box from the car.

We drove back to Harvard Square for the movie. The Zinns had never seen Butch Cassidy before. It held up for all of us. Afterward we bought ice-cream cones at Brigham’s and went back to our apartment. Finally Howard and Roz went home before it was time for the early edition of the Sunday New York Times to arrive at the subway kiosk below the square. Around midnight Patricia and I went over to the square and bought a couple of copies. We came up the stairs into Harvard Square reading the front page, with the three-column story about the secret archive, feeling very good.”

58 thoughts on “A Memory of Howard Zinn”

  1. I miss him already.

    incidentally, different decade, different generation, but I also first met him at Faneuil Hall. seems fitting.

    Peace, Professor.

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  3. This was a marvelous piece – especially at such short notice. I was devastated by the news and this helped give me hope.

  4. Peace be with you, Howard Zinn. I just learned about you, and I wish I had known of you longer. Thanks isn't enough for all you have done for the people.

  5. The last time I saw Howard was when he and Angela Davis chaired the Celebrate the Children of Resistance rally of my brother Robert's organization The Rosenberg Fund For Children.

    Howard's life was not just filled with incredible contributions to all sorts of important struggles — not the least of which the struggle for the "hearts and minds" of succeeding generations through his wonderful writings — but was filled with an outstanding personal commitment. He NEVER GAVE UP and he NEVER GOT TIRED. In fact his death is such a shock to us because we in some ways thought he would live forever.

    WELL — as the song about Joe Hill goes: "I never died, says he…" Howard will live forever — and his passing means all the rest of us MUST redouble our efforts.

    Joe Hill said, "Don't mourn for me, organize!" Howard would say no less — and we can do no less.

    1. As soon as I finished reading the first despatch from the Boston Globe early this morning I forwarded a link to that story to my Democrat friends in Whatcom County WA then I checked to County/City library website to see how much activity was in requests for Howard's works — not very many. But I checked again just now and there were several and a whole slough (sp?) or requests for Springsteen, so I guess there iis some interest here in the hinterlands of northwest WA.

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  7. Let us hope that real action / effort will be exerted on behalf of MORDECHAI VANUNU, now and in the near future – by the famous friends who posed with him – wrote about him but abandoned him these last 6 years since his release. His spirit breaking incarceration in a mossad prison for 18 years — for revealing to the world about Israel's nuclear weapons, the so-called 'open secret. ' But his abandonment by famed "friends" – is a disgrace! Vanunu though stateless, suffers still from that government which continues to hold him 'hostage' – to keep him as an iconic warning to other Isreali anti nuke activists who might speak out. Vanunu continues to hope that people like Ellsberg will do more than call him "friend" but rather make his freedom — not their celebrity– their goal.

    1. GOOD ONE Miriam!

      I too am disgusted with Daniel Ellsberg's self-promotion 'vis a vie' his "HEROES and FRIENDS" and his incessant reminders of 'ancient' history: The Pentagon Papers!

      Ellsberg's recycle of his 2004 article on Vanunu published on this site Jan. 1, 2010 was a pathetic piece, and proved he was absolutely CLUELESS about Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial in the 'democracy' [hahahaha] of Israel!

      He also didn't even know that Vanunu closed down the US Campaign to Free Vanunu in June 2005!

      On Jan. 1. 2010, after reading MR. ELLSBERG's recycled article I immediately emailed him one of my PASSIONATE DECLARATIONS thorough his site regarding THE REAL NEWS about Vanunu-not just once, but many times!

      Mr. E couldn't even be bothered to reply to me, but Russian media reported that a search of Vanunu’s belongings on Dec. 28, 2009 uncovered a letter from an American causing Israeli officials to be concerned that “he could be orchestrating something.”

      http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_co…

      Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine

      Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
      Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
      A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
      Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"

      1. And maybe this is all important stuff, but do you have anything to say about Howard Zinn? Or do you prefer to use this space to continue to press your self-promoting hatred of Daniel Ellsberg?

  8. Michael Meerpol wrote:

    “In fact his death is such a shock to us because we in some ways thought he would live forever”.

    That’s precisely it.

    It’s terrible the way these things work [I’ve been guilty of the tendency myself], but maybe the announcement of Howard Zinn’s passing will inspire more people to discover Zinn’s books and share their thoughts with others.

    Sincere condolences to the Zinn children, extended family and close friends.

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  13. He was a fabulous person and professor. His class never failed to stimulate various parts of every student's brain. I heard that the last book he was reading was Stupid Wars. Seems appropriate. He will be missed.

  14. Thank you for posting this. I had the honor of having Howard Zinn as a guest lecturer years ago at The Evergreen State College. At the end of his week there we had a potluck seminar at the campus organic farm and talked with him about "A People's History". Amazing man. You aint so bad yourself by the way. :)

  15. I grew up on Long Island in Glen Cove, one of the towns where they built projects to depopulate the cities after the ghetto uprisings. Our school had a black and white cafeteria, not because of segregation, it's just the way things were. I went to school at Boston University and somehow signed up for Professor Zinn's class. I had no idea who he was and that fortunate choice led to everything else…I am in shock today but I watched Democracy Now's tribute and I think that Prof Zinn would want us out in the streets, or doing something good to make this world improve. On that thought I try to hold back my tears, but they just keep coming. Goodbye dear teacher. Thank you for teaching us what life worth living is all about.

    1. U BET ZINN would want -and he taught-US that we must all DO SOMETHING, or we are just blowing IDIOT WIND!

      Kvetching/whining/complaining/crying is NOT what Zinn was ever about!

      Zinn was all about WAKING US UP and inspiring US to DO SOMETHING, for the greatest threat to FREEDOM is an inert, apathetic and uninformed republic.

      Zinn's "PASSIONATE DECLARATIONS" should be read-and acted upon- by every US citizen!

  16. YOU BET I can talk plenty on Zinn, and I have NO HATE for ANYONE-i only hate BULLSHIT and any ideology that presupposes any people or race superior to another.

    But, i do believe Mr. ELLSBERG, is a big bag of wind who hasn't done anything NEW and my comment was RE: The INSIGHT Miriam provided!

    Zinn wrote lots Re: Machiavelli and so, in celebration of the Life of Zinn, I offer you what I wrote RE: Machiavelli 'vis a vie' The LIAR Shimon Peres!

    In 1963, when Vanunu was nine years old the Zionists came to his home town of Marrakech, Morocco and convinced his Orthodox father to abandon his general store and pack up the first seven of his eleven children for the land of milk and honey. Instead, the Vanunu's were banished to the desert of Beesheva.

    A few months later, Shimon Peres, then Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense met with President John Kennedy, inside the White House.

    Kennedy told Peres, "You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?"

    Peres replied, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."

    By September of 1986, Peres was convulsing over Vanunu, who had been employed as a lowly tech in his progeny; Israel’s clandestine underground nuclear weapons centre in the Negev called the Dimona.

    Peres ordered the Mossad, to "Bring the son of a bitch back here."

    Peres ordered Vanunu's kidnapping that included a clubbing, drugging and being flung upon an Israeli cargo boat back to Israel for a closed door trial.

    In 1985, before quitting the Dimona, Vanunu shot 56 photos of the top-secret labs and production processes that proved Israel had become a major nuclear power by stockpiling between 100 and 200 atomic bombs within the six underground levels where plutonium production, and secret nuclear weapons were assembled without any knowledge, debate or authorization from its own citizens. Israel has yet to allow International Inspectors into the aged Dimona plant which is leaking and endangering the health of its own citizens.

    In April 2005, two months before my first of six trips to Israel Palestine, I turned the TV on- it had last been tuned into the History channel. At that moment, they were broadcasting a show called, "Sexpionage" all about Russian female spies and one from the Mossad.

    The very first clip that ran before my eyes was of Vanunu being transported to his closed door trial. It was the few famous seconds I had never witnessed, of Vanunu’s inspired move to write upon his palm: "HIJACKED" and the Rome flight number he had been on. That moment in history soon led led investigative journalist Peter Hounam to the Mossad agent; Cindy/Cheryl.

    On the show, that clip was followed by one of Shimon Perez in 1986, resurrecting the spirit of Machiavelli as he mendaciously claimed that Israel would never be the first in the Mid East to possess nuclear weapons.

    As we live Orwell’s nightmare, Peres was the one awarded for playing a part in achieving the Oslo Declaration of Principles.

    According to the preamble of the DOP, this peace was supposed to be based on mutual respect and reconciliation.

    Ever since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in achieving the Oslo agreement, Peres has been most instrumental in helping to destroy the agreement.

    Alfred Nobel’s intention was to reward people with a moral backbone. Nobel had hoped to create icons and examples to humankind.

    Annually since 1986, Vanunu has been nominated for The Nobel Peace Prize. When Bishop Tutu nominated him in 2007, Vanunu told me that he didn't want the award if Israel refused him the liberty and freedom to go and accept it.

    In April 1999, thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a letter calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to articulate a brighter vision for humanity."

    President Clinton responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards, and ever since the silence has been deafening!

    THE REST of "The Martyrdom of Vanunu: Machiavelli and Peres"

    http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_co…

    1. Eileen…
      Thank you for sharing your exposition with readers who remain ignorant about who Mordechai Vanunu is or the hell he continues to live in for exposing the truth about Israel's nuclear weapons back in the early 80s.
      Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers remains a well known to scholars of Vietnam, so it seemed he was a likely kindred spirit of Vanunu. I was elated to read a few years ago that Ellsberg called him a 'brother'– thinking that meant DE would use his "pulpit" to lead spirited effort to get MV FREE after his prison release. But for as those of us like you Eileen- who've visited him, interviewed him, documented and filmed his words these last few years and let him know that he is not forgotten…especially as we observe his suffering & struggle to endure inside Israel -whilst remaining a "hostage" to power / arrogance there.
      There exists a small global network of MV's friends, like you, who cannot understand why Ellsberg would use Vanunu's name or claim him as a brother without SPEAKING OUT and educating the largely ignorant public about the HUGE debt we ALL OWE MORDECHAI VANUNU. It seems a cheap shot to reference MV's name without working on a plan to get him FREE. Speaking out on his accord – doing what those with access to power and fame could contribute– but do not.
      We who respected, admired and will miss Howard Zinn– who remember what Ellsberg contributed to the struggle to help bring an end to the Vietnam war by exposing the truth.. there remain too many who have neither heard nor comprehend MV's sacrifice.
      Where is the leadership going to come from to FREE VANUNU once and for all if a man like Ellsberg will not. pick up the challenge? Where better to reveal this than right here, on the doorstep of the man who calls himself "brother". if not now –when?
      Thanks again, Eileen for all that you've done…!

  17. From AK Press:

    The great-souled Zinn in his own words:

    "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."–Howard Zinn, from "The Optimism of Uncertainty" (2004)

  18. Howard Zinn, an immensely influential enemy of our Republic, has passed away. I prefer not speak ill of the recently deceased, but I can’t ignore it either. A prolific writer and a history professor at Boston University, he helped root generations of unwitting Americans in marxist principles.

    Zinn’s warm demeanor and charisma often disarmed the young and naive, who digested his palatable anti-Americanism. Few radicals have done as much to warp minds, promote revisionist history, and transform generations as Zinn. His vile and popular history book, A People’s History of the United States, stands as a blueprint for politically correct history.

    John Silber, former Boston University president, once referred to Zinn as an example of a professor who poisoned the well of academia. I couldn’t agree more. He may be gone, but he left a legacy that will take years to destroy, and we will destroy it!

    1. And just who, sir, might "we" be? And how do you presume to destroy the legacy of this man? I first studied college history in the 1950's, when the emphasis was on royalty, wars, remembering dates, and learning the mythology of the United States of America. When I resumed my studies in 1986, the first book I read was Professor Zinn's. What a breath of fresh air it let in. He certainly didn't warp or poison my mind. Rather he renewed my faith in the moral principles of democracy on which we were founded. If you really preferred to not speak ill of the recently deceased, you would have made your statement on a sight more accepting of your regressive political views.

    2. The legacy you're speaking of, Mark, is a legacy that left us a new (maybe not exactly "new", but I don't think it can be argued that Zinn hadn't done the most to promote it) and I would say improved analytical framework for how we view history. This new framework crashed through the establishment mindset that pretty much restricted the way it views history to the actions of "great men" and "big events". That contribution alone seals Howard Zinn as one of the great historians.

      Myself, I'm what most Americans – perhaps disparagingly – would call a libertarian. There are avenues of intellectual exploration where I significantly part ways with Howard Zinn. But I always apply the historical method that was his to the way I view precedent and therein lies his enduring importance for me. Further, the man was a consummate gentleman, always intellectually honest (even if he didn't understand your point of view, he was careful not to misrepresent it), and his passionate resistance to war and what he viewed as oppressive states of affairs is admirable, worthy of emulation, and we sure could use a lot more of it.

      He'll be missed. The comment I'm replying to won't.

    3. Sorry but I don't understand you… Destroy what ?
      If Zinn books were knew by more people, they would be more "Citizen", and less stupid !
      Destroy his legacy ? What a strange idea…Destroy books also ? Like oncle Adolf ?
      Folie…
      FC from Normandy, France

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  23. When I was in law school, dealing with an arrogant (and drunken) professor, he thought he was insulting me by saying that I must have come there as a student of Zinn (from my undergraduate college), because he considered me to be an unrealistic radical. Until I later read Zinn, whose courses I had never taken, I had no idea what a compliment that was. And now Ellsberg's tribute shows how much courage both of them possessed, of which I cannot claim even a tenth.

  25. I'll be rewatching my DVD of "You Can't Stay Still on a Moving Train" (that isn't the exact title, and I can't check because I've loaned it to someone. I've bought many copies which have ended up in the same way. But I'll happily buy another along with "People's History", which is also passed along). I'm deeply saddened by his death, but now he can get some rest and be with his ever present wife, who died not long ago. You will live on, Professor, in the hearts and minds of all of us whom you have touched and inspired. With deepest gratitude, Peace!

  26. Howard Zinn was an inspiration to us all. His tireless efforts for peace and social justice have made this world a better place: He was a beacon of truth, a voice of compassion, and a humorous yet serious critic of greed and narcissism.

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  28. Dear Daniel,

    I was a student in St Xavier's, Mumbai, India, when I saw your Pentagon Papers in book form. Zinn's "Peoples History" we read in the 1990s. Thank you for your tribute.

    Joseph M. Pinto, Pune, India.

  29. Howard Zinn. I am an Australian who listened to his lectures as I drove through the rice fields of Thailand in the late 1990s, I became a teacher and a grad student because of him and Chomsky. A great, great man.

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  31. Howard Zinn was a member of the Advisory Board of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case.
    He was not alone in being a great historian, nor was he alone in
    > being a fearless organizer and activist, but he was alone in being both at
    > the same time. He was, for me, a person for whom there were no convenient
    > labels. His commitment was to human beings, to their daily and lifetime
    > experiences. Justice was not an abstraction for Zinn, but a necessary
    > condition in the life of people seeking food, warmth, freedom. Like Whitman,
    > his ideology was compassion. And, like Tom Paine, his patriotism was an
    > energetic outreach to ordinary people to affirm their love of country, not
    > through docility, but through dissent from policies driven by greed,
    > pathological prejudice and imperial ambition. It is customary to say of such
    > a man that it will be a long time before another like him comes our way.
    > Zinn would dispute that, and would argue that many others like him are
    > already on their way.

    David Alman,

    President, National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case

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