Howard Zinn died on January 27, 2010. He wrote “A People’s History of the United States” and many other books. “People’s History” sold over 1 million copies and — unusual in the publishing world — sells more every year.
Zinn, a WWII bombardier as a young man, became an outspoken critic of war. He viewed it as a tool of empires. He did not believe in the concept of good or just wars.
Zinn was an active writer and thinker right up to his sudden death, of a heart attack. One of his recent essays, summarized in a previous Peace Pundit post, criticized President Barack Obama’s plans to expand the US military presence in Afghanistan. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to speak at the Santa Monica Museum of Art for an event titled “A Collection of Ideas… the People Speak.”
In November 2006, he was awarded the Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship by the Haven Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. At the end of his acceptance speech, he said something that should be broadcast far and wide and taught to every young person:
“Everything we do is important. Every little thing we do, every picket line we walk on, every letter we write, every act of civil disobedience we engage in, any recruiter that we talk to, any parent that we talk to, any GI that we talk to, any young person that we talk to, anything we do in class, outside of class, everything we do in the direction of a different world is important, even though at the moment they seem futile, because that’s how change comes about. Change comes about when millions of people do little things, which at certain points in history come together, and then something good and something important happens.”
February 7, 2010 at 1:52 pm |
Great quote. I think I’ll share this with my students. The freshmen are just finishing up Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and this will put a good perspective on what they can do.