Amidst stories about Apple’s iPad and how Chris Matthews forgot Barack Obama was Black for an hour came one significant piece of news that I am pretty certain will not earn coverage on any major news channels, the passing of social historian, Howard Zinn.

“Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo dies at 87″

During my first year of community college, attended at Merced College, I was fortunate to take History 17B with Amerjit Johl.  It was in that class, where I was required to read A People’s History of the United States.  Howard Zinn’s book about the social history of the United States, documenting the plight of the people and the oppressive nature of imperial countries, flipped my perspective on history.  All I knew prior was history filled with white faces with a sprinkle of color.  This was the book that introduced me to the existence of the Philippine-American War.

I will forever be grateful to Johl for requiring us to read Zinn and to Zinn for writing such an important book.

The passing of Howard Zinn is a huge loss for progressives.  But Zinn inspired generations of students who have since decided to rewrite their own history.

Dave Zirin: Howard Zinn: The Historian who Made History

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” -H.Zinn

-Ninoy Brown

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 10:28 pm and is filed under In Memoriam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.