Daniel Ellsberg. Remembering My Hero, Howard Zinn.

[BeckyDem]

January 27, 2020

The renowned historian Howard Zinn died on January 27, 2010. On the occasion of the 10 year anniversary of his passing, we are revisiting the following piece by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about his close friend and “the best human being [he’s] ever known,” originally published on January 28, 2010.

I just learned that my friend Howard Zinn died today. Earlier this morning, I was being interviewed by the Boston Phoenix, in connection with the February release of a documentary in which he is featured prominently. The interviewer asked me who my own heroes were, and I had no hesitation in answering, first, “Howard Zinn.”

Just weeks ago, after watching the film, I woke up thinking that I had never told him how much he meant to me. For once in my life, I acted on that thought in a timely way. I sent him an e-mail in which I said, among other things, what I had often told others: that he was, “in my opinion, the best human being I’ve ever known. The best example of what a human can be, and can do with their life.”

Our first meeting was at Faneuil Hall in Boston in early 1971, where we both spoke against the indictments of Eqbal Ahmad and Phil Berrigan for “conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger.” We marched with the rest of the crowd to make citizens’ arrests at the Boston office of the FBI. Later that spring, we went with our affinity group (including Noam Chomsky, Cindy Fredericks, Marilyn Young, Mark Ptashne, Zelda Gamson, Fred Branfman and Mitch Goodman), to the May Day actions blocking traffic in Washington (“If they won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government”). Howard tells that story in the film, and I tell it at greater length in my memoir, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.” But for reasons of space, I had to cut out the next section in which Howard — who had been arrested in D.C. after most of the rest of us had gone elsewhere — came back to Boston for a rally and a blockade of the Federal Building. I’ve never published that story, so here it is, an outtake from my manuscript:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/remembering-my-hero-howard-zinn/

[BSdetect]

1. I encourage everyone to try to read The Pentagon Papers.

It ought to wake you up to exactly what goes on in the world.

[pecosbob]

2. Howard Zinn, one of my personal heroes

One of the most important figures in American historical writing. The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in classrooms across the country.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/

[CanisCrocinus]

3. Daniel Ellsberg is a hero himself.

One of the most principled people of our time.

[BeckyDem]

4. Indeed. +1