The Late Great Howard Zinn

Today, January 27, is the second anniversary of the death of Howard Zinn. An active participant in the Civil Rights movement, he was dismissed in 1963 from his position as a tenured professor at Spelman College in Atlanta after siding with black women students in the struggle against segregation. In 1967, he wrote one of the first, and most influential, books calling for an end to the war in Vietnam. A veteran of the US Army Air Force, he edited The Pentagon Papers, leaked by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and was later designated a "high security risk" by the FBI.

  alJazeera

That link contains a tribute to Howard by Noam Chomsky.

Also, if you have never read Zinn’s A People's History of the United States , do yourself a favor. I tried to give it as a present to kids entering high school so they could get some interesting reality with their dry history texts, but none ever expressed appreciation. Imagine that. I was lucky enough in college to have an introductory history course taught by a professor who used the Zinn method of teaching (not Zen). Even then, I was older than the bulk of the lecture hall freshmen, and they didn’t seem to be interested in the class any more than the said high schoolers were in Zinn's book. If you’re an older citizen who likely missed out on American history in any fashion other than Names and Dates of Big People and Big Events, check out A People's History of the United States . While I prefer to have a book (or a Kindle) in my hands, you can read it free online, which is awesome.

Tell your kids.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.