Thoughts on Howard Zinn’s Passing
Howard Zinn 1922-2010
Howard Zinn passed away this week. For those of you not familiar with his work, please see his website www.howardzinn.org – For those of you who knew of him, it was a loss of one of the most amazing heroes of our time.
I had the chance to meet Howard Zinn a few years ago when I was doing interviews in Boston for a film I was working on. I had met many amazing people throughout the journey of making the film, but meeting Howard would forever change my life. He was the most approachable academic I have met, open with his time and his commitment to cause change, in whatever way, even through giving an interview to some young confused punk that thought it might be cool to make a documentary…about well.. something.
That was Zinn. Always moving, never still. His book You Can’t Stay Neutral While on a Moving Train said so much about how he saw life and how he himself lived it. And that now is the celebration I feel.. The wake.. For us all to write how Howard Zinn affected us and how we each will carry on his mission of speaking truth to power, realizing that together the smallest group of dedicated people can truly change the world, and finally, that that is the real reason we are all here (eating cheese puffs and playing video games is fun, but perhaps there is some greater purpose for us all)…
As Zinn said when I interviewed him… ‘If we are going to change society and if we are going to change the way people behave, then we must give them a sense of their own power.’
And this came from a man who had lived many different lives. From a WWII bomber pilot to the man that after the war went back to grieve with the people whom he had bombed. Howard was always one to lead by example.
If each of us can carry on his ideals of activism, self empowerment and social justice in our daily lives, in whatever small or major way, then we can show the affect he had on us and remember him everyday in our actions, not our apathy. We can remember him through the compassion in which we treat one another. And we can remember him through the courage we find within ourselves to stand up to anything.
So raise a cup for Howard Zinn, poet, author, activist, humanitarian and the kind of person we can all only hope to aspire to. Wherever he is now, he is needed and I am sure is there telling it like it is.
To you Professor Zinn.
Director, American Dream