Ep. 455: The People's Historian Howard Zinn and the Importance of Radical Optimism in Dark Times

Dave Zirin is the sports editor for The Nation, a columnist for The Progressive, and the author of eight books on the politics of sports, including What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States and A People's History of Sports in the United States. His new book, The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, tells the story of his friend and mentor — the working-poor kid from a Jewish family in New York who served in the US Army Air Force in World War II and had a crisis of conscience about killing civilians. After the war, Howard Zinn earned his PhD in history at Columbia, then went on to teach at Spelman College, where he helped mentor a generation of Black American civil rights activists and future political and cultural leaders. Zirin reflects on what it was like to know Zinn not as a public figure but as a dear friend — and the lessons he taught him about living a full life, generosity, and the many forms that teaching can take. WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME? On Twitter: https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega My email: [email protected] HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW? Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast