Howard Zinn (1922-2010): In Lieu of Flowers, Organize
By Al Giordano
This segment of a Bill Moyers interview with Howard Zinn came after the production of last month's History Channel special, The People Speak: Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport, based on the works of Howard Zinn.
Almost everyone who lived and organized in New England during the past many decades found yourself on a picket line or in a rambunctious assembly hall with Howard, who passed away yesterday at the age of 87 after a long life that anyone should consider successful. A Boston University professor during much of that time, Howard practiced the art of looking at - and participating in - history from below.
Where other leftish icons across the Charles River have spent these decades gnashing their teeth, lecturing and bemoaning how awful everything that happens up above has been (as if most folks born down below didn't already know that by the time we were eight), Howard answered the call, again and again, to help us do something about it. He walked out to the picket lines every time he was called - by neighborhood organizers fighting against his university's real estate grabs, by striking workers that cleaned and fed the students and professors, by almost anyone who organized and fought that asked, and often before they asked, for his support.
To those of us who were part of the Clamshell Alliance and related anti-nuclear struggles of the seventies and early eighties in New England, Howard would drive out to the countryside, consult and call attention to our organizing campaigns and acts of civil disobedience whenever asked. He did this before his 1980 book, A People's History of the United States, published by Harper & Row, turned him into a national and international icon.
In 1986, when students at the University of Massachusetts occupied school offices to block CIA recruiting, joined by my pal Abbie Hoffman and presidential daughter Amy Carter, and went to trial (a case that I was involved in at least to the extent of getting my attorney Tom Lesser to represent Carter and advise Abbie and the others how to turn the tables and put the CIA on trial in what was meant to be a mere criminal trespass case), Howard came to Northampton, raised his right hand, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His testimony - about the patriotic and fully American traditions that the occupiers had practiced - was key in convincing the jury to acquit the defendants.
In 1990, when Boston University president John Silber sought and won the Democratic Nomination for Governor of Massachusetts, Zinn drove out to Springfield regularly to co-captain my WSPR radio show and explain to the populace in the western part of the state the authoritarian nature of this bizarro-land political candidate whose autobiography, Howard quipped, should have been titled Mein Campus. Howard understood the inspiring power of humor, too.
Last night and today the Internets were ablaze with worthy praise for this great narrator of authentic history, the history from below. But I must say I am puzzled (although not surprised) by how many folks who don't practice what Zinn preached have joined in the hagiography-fest because they either really believe they are part of his tradition or merely to co-brand themselves with his now hallowed name.
Howard, at least in the decades I knew him (and I don't claim to have been any particularly close friend - just another among thousands of comrades who knew him from where the work was being done, inside the foxholes of community organizing) never once whined, never committed an act of poutrage, not feigned, not real. He didn't view the world and its discontents as too overwhelming to change and he understood the non-linear nature of change. He was pragmatic to the core, optimistic in word and deed, and as he says in this recent video interview with Moyers, the real struggles happen down below.
The 1920s and 30s labor strikes that led to the New Deal and the 1950s and 60s civil rights actions that ended legal segregation were not per se aimed at those up above; they were struggles by real people to change their daily lives on the most local of levels. That they led to big national legislation and change were incidental benefits for the many of what they had already won directly for themselves; a better wage at better conditions, the ability for they and their children to play, study and shop in the same places white folks did.
Watch the video and listen, really listen, to what Howard said during his last months on earth, the culmination of what he had been saying and learning throughout his wonderful life. He was no whiner nor Chicken Little. He had the same attitude about Obama (in '08 we published his qualified endorsement which, in sum, said that it made sense to elect someone under whom the space would expand for us to organize and win our own battles for ourselves) that he'd had about every leader during his lifetime: that we, down below, have more power than we know to change things and we ought to stop waiting for others up above to hand it down to us.
The doctrine of Authentic Journalism and its emphasis on turning the cameras and microphones and pointing them below - instead of obsessing upon how bad everything is up above - is Zinnism in praxis, beyond mere repetition of theory.
(And my pal from the old Bedford Park neighborhood in the Bronx, Eddie C, has posted the rest of these final Zinn interview videos over at DKos, check 'em out.)
Howard Zinn didn't want or need flowery eulogies. He wanted us to get out there and do the work he chronicled. In lieu of flowers, organize, document and tell the stories of that organizing so that others may, too, be inspired to do the same. That - and not a book on a coffee table - is the legacy of Howard Zinn. Like the song says, if you wanna go to heaven, you gotta raise a lotta hell.
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Comments
Love
Submitted January 28, 2010 - 7:08 am by Suzy ShureThank you, Al. I still remember Professor Zinn's class at BU. A word I think missing in what I've been reading about him now is love. I thought he was able to live, and teach, and inspire out of the most loving heart. Love in the way MLK spoke of love:
"What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love." MLK
Rest in Peace Howard and Roslyn.
@ Suzy Shure
Submitted January 28, 2010 - 8:17 am by Lorie CavinThanks for the Love. May we all strive "to live and teach and inspire out of the most loving heart."
I sent this entry to my organizing family over at:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGGxS3/com...
Study hard, dear scholars, class of 2010. We who organize, need those who document now, more than ever.
Advice from an Organizing Great
Submitted January 28, 2010 - 10:13 am by Alexa (not verified)"Strong people dont need strong leaders." -- Ella Baker, who started community organizing in the 1920s, and who is credited by Charles Payne in his book, I've Got the Light of Freedom, on the organizing tradition in the black community, with being the organizing force behind the Civil Rights movement.
From a blog post about her:
Don’t know who Ella Baker is, or at least, what she did exactly? That was her intention.
Ella Baker, born in North Carolina in 1903, was widely known within the organizing circles of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1940’s to the 1960’s as a quiet, mobilizing force behind the development of the movement. Baker was the first paid organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (whose figurehead was Martin Luther King). When students in Greensboro, North Carolina sat-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960, she went to North Carolina and helped students found the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, which was responsible for organizing and coordinating the sit-in movement, the Freedom Rides, and later voter registrations in the Deep South. Most importantly, Ella Baker brought with her an ideology and practice of mass-mobilization movement building. With a strong distaste for charismatic leaders and centralized organizations, Baker worked tirelessly to spread the concept of local empowerment; instilling in the minds of Bob Moses, Julian Bond, and the like that real organizing must include a willingness to engage in “spadework”, the slow, unglamorous work of meeting people one on one and encouraging them to become involved in the movement. She lived the concept of ‘participatory democracy’, believing that true liberation can only come when the oppressed are shaping their own struggle for freedom.
Baker felt strongly that Southern Blacks would only succeed in their struggle for civil and political rights when they were empowered themselves to address these issues. She said,
Beyond her general distrust of organizations that emphasized leadership from the outside (she wrote the above as part of a critique of the organizing structure of the NAACP of the 1940’s, which was based in New York), she also always emphasized the need for the participatory democracy and the inclusion of everyone in shaping the struggle.
Thank you Howard Zinn
Submitted January 28, 2010 - 11:12 am by John SladeAl's description of Mr Zinn reminds me of what people who knew Paul Wellstone better than I would say. Like Howard, Paul was there day in, day out, doing the 'spadework' (wonderful if somewhat tangential post about Ella Baker) and in small groups doing good things. Also a pragmatic as well as an idealist, Wellstone didn't spend time moping or complaining.
The People's History, with Larry Gonnik's Cartoon History, was a 're-aligning my worldview' book. I'm glad to have found it as early as I did, and wish I'd found it earlier!
Rest in Peace, Mr. Zinn. Hopefully we'll be able to write some new better history.
Change is not linear
Submitted January 29, 2010 - 8:34 pm by Nancy Chester"He didn't view the world and its discontents as too overwhelming to change and he understood the non-linear nature of change."
I don't know if it's the hierarchical nature of the institutions and companies in which we work, advancing grade by grade through the educational system as children growing up or the whole linear Western progression of birth, school, marriage/divorce, children, work, death and for the religiously inclined an afterlife of reward/retribution but I personally find that breaking free of linear thought (and it's subtexts of hierarchy & authority) is a major building stone for taking our power and dropping fear.
@ Nancy Chester
Submitted January 29, 2010 - 11:48 pm by Nancy MickenbeckerI love that you said all of that in one sentence.
Getting involved again
Submitted January 30, 2010 - 1:02 pm by Karen DesmondThanks - I've been inspired again by Al, Howard and Obama, and so this week am getting actively involved again in my local group. I've also posted this action diary to DKos if anyone wants to jump over and recommend it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/30/832215/-Calling-all-Obama-Campaign-Donors-or-Volunteers!ACTION-diary
In particular I remember Obama's speech in Grant Park about how this is only the beginning.
KD
School boards: The first line of defense
Submitted January 30, 2010 - 2:32 pm by Phoenix Woman (not verified)A lot of people say "I'd love to organize or take over my local Democratic Party/union/etc. but I just don't have the time".
If time or commitment ability (and really, the last is more like the ability to do something without being bored -- or letting the boring parts drive you away from it) really is a problem, here's something that you can do that doesn't require much effort on your part, especially once you're elected:
Get. On. Your. Local. School. Board.
Been wondering how the religio-racist right has made such inroads into public education over the past three decades? They've deliberately targeted school boards, that's how. It's relatively cheap and easy to get elected -- just have a core group of friends/co-religionists who will vote for you, and (for bigger towns/cities) a few hundred bucks to buy lawn signs (name recognition is more powerful than you think), and you're very likely in like Flynn.
Of course, this requires having friends and/or allies who you actually live alongside and see in the flesh as opposed to only online. Hone those people skills!
The Boston Globe agrees
Submitted January 31, 2010 - 7:20 pm by JCK (not verified)If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Al should be very flattered by the recent Boston Globe editorial entitled "Don't Mourn, Organize!"
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/newton/articles/2010/01/29/zinn_dont_mour...
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