Growing up in the United States, I was exposed to the standard US History modules from grade school to high school. Stories of great men such as Christopher Colombus, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln filled my text and notebooks, and their achievements sanctified in the annals of US History.

As a child, I rarely questioned the authority of my teachers and books, and when if I did my pubescent self was too focused on video games and music to pay the skepticism any mind. Later in high school my history teacher, Michael Esten, gave me a new perspective on history – one that delved into the psychology and idiosyncrasy behind major events. Like any good teacher, his approach to the subject stirred my curiosity, and during my college years I would often look into the subject for recreation.

My interest in the subject lead me to a very famous book by Howard Zinn titled “A People’s History of the United States”. The book details pivotal moments in US history, but unlike what we learned in class the book takes the perspective of the common people, not the elites. Accounts of the Native Americans that were displaced and massacred beginning with Christopher Colombus’s landing, the slave rebellions and abolition movements,  the rise of the labor unions in the 19th century and the women’s right movements and more take center stage in Zinn’s book. A People’s History of the United States gave me a sense of empowerment – that a middle class person like myself have the ability to produce social change, and that our future doesn’t rest in the hands of the few political elites.

Curious about the author, I soon started reading more about Howard Zinn and soon grew tremendous admiration and respect towards the person. The Brooklyn-born Zinn joined the Air Force during World War II as bombardier. This experience partly influenced his later anti-war stance. He then graduated with a BA from New York University then his MA and Phd from Columbia University.  Zinn, who has taught in Spelman College and Boston University, was actively involved in several social movements including the Civil Right Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War movement, and most recently the Anti-Iraq War – often times putting his career on the line in doing so. His list of activities and achievements goes on and on, and even when skimming his list accomplishments you can get a sense of conviction in his beliefs, and a genuine love for sharing knowledge. Howard Zinn passed away in 2010.

“You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” is a documentary on the life of Howard Zinn by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller. The film gives an account of Zinn’s life beginning with his childhood in Brooklyn, his support for student protests in Spelman College, until about the years the video was produced in the early 2000s. With testimonials by friends, colleagues, and Howard Zinn himself ,we get personal details that influenced his point of view and decisions. The film is presented in a very TV documentary fashion. This straight-forward production gives a generally fair overview of Zinn’s life, though sometimes the music selection can make it  a bit tacky (in that TV documentary sort of way). Over all, it is a good introduction to Howard Zinn and his major achievements. I hope you get to watch the film, and perhaps become more curious about his work. If you would like to know more about Howard Zinn, clicking the link at the bottom of this post is a good place to start. Enjoy!

You can click the left or right button on the video to watch the second part of the film.

Edit:When this article was first posted, two videos accompanied it. One was “Empire or Humanity: What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me about the American Empire” and a C-SPAN In Depth Interview. The videos were replaced by “You Cant Be Neutral on a Moving Train” as the film seems more appropriate for this post. You can watch the two videos that were posted by clicking the titles in this edit.