Trump’s GOP should heed Howard Zinn’s Courage and Heroic Integrity

By Donald A. Collins | 20 August 2026
Church and State

(Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay)

As Mark Twain said about history it doesn’t repeat but it often rhymes.

For some years I have been buying and touting for family and friends two of Howard Zinn’s well-regarded history books, one entitled “A People’s History of the United States”, the other his book written for young people about American history, “A Young People’s History of the United States” which told the standard facts things about American history, but also about its underbelly of slavery, racism, and cruel political misconduct.

From biological notes about the author on the covers of those books was information about his liberal civil rights and anti-war views but I had little idea about what this man accomplished until I recently listened to his autobiographical book entitled “You can’t be neutral on a moving train!” about his accomplished and turbulent life.

As a liberal on so many issues such as civil and women’s reproductive rights, I can understand his teen age idealism for communism in his poor neighborhood.

After getting settled in his academic career, Zinn battled against the abundance of poverty, the gap between rich and poor and the power of the rich to keep those conditions in place. His early life experiences explain his willingness to put himself in physical and legal danger for those issues all his life.

His poor Jewish parents emigrated separately from Europe to America to begin their lives living in crowded tenement houses. Both parents were factory workers with limited education when they met and married in New York. Zinn was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on August 24, 1922.

This would likely have been a place where upward mobility was unlikely. His parents worked at low paying jobs and the chance for Zinn’s education was slim.

However, as Wikipedia tells us “Zinn’s parents introduced him to literature by sending 10 cents plus a coupon to the New York Post for each of the 20 volumes of Charles Dickens’ collected works.[8] As a young man, Zinn made the acquaintance of several young Communists from his Brooklyn neighborhood. They invited him to a political rally being held in Times Square. Despite it being a peaceful rally, mounted police charged the marchers. Zinn was hit and knocked unconscious. This would have a profound effect on his political and social outlook.”

When World War II broke out Zinn was drafted and got trained as a Bombardier in the Air Force.

He flew many combat missions over Germany, but killing thousands reinforced his strong pacifist views against all wars.

After the war, as was true for me having served in the Korean War and all GIs, military service provided under the GI bill the opportunity to get your higher education US Government paid for.

Even his BA and MA then his Ph.D in history and his excellent published history of the New Deal found Zinn as a jew made a job harder to find.

Finally, the black undergraduate Spellman Collinge in Atlanta offered him, a white, newly minted academic, to be Chair of the History department and he and his family migrated from NYC.

After a time at Spellman College in Atlanta Zinn wanted its administration to push harder for black civil rights and left. Zinn then became a professor of history at Boston University where he got tenure which saved him from dismissal as he pursued his public protests for cavil rights and against the Vietnam war.

As you’ve read above, his liberal beliefs and his public protest activities placed him in controversial activities throughout his life and it would be difficult to until that history without reading this book which I strongly recommend.

To repeat, all along the way from his beginning as the head of the history department at Spellman and his long tenure at Boston University, Zinn became involved in every controversial anti-democratic controversy in the late 20th century, including the Vietnam war, speaking up at every opportunity about government repression and it’s totally undemocratic treatment of citizens, including lying about the basis for its military actions, such as Vietnam.

When the US finally lost the war in Vietnam in 1977, we had inflicted punishment on its people such as Agent Orange and brutal killings like the My Lai ili massacre, which became public with the June 28, 1971 NY Times publication of the Pentagon papers gotten from Defense Department researcher Daniel Elsberg and his assistant who had given the papers surrendered for prosecution but the case against him and his fellow assistant was dismissed after the 1973 Watergate affair exploded and brought Richard Nixon down.

This autobiographical book was published originally in 1994 and again in 2001 and after Zinn died in 1910, copyrighted again in 2017 as its relevance becomes more important every day in this Trump era.

In the early 1990s I visited Vietnam twice. It had won thewar, recovered well and become economically vibrant country. Seems that our expensive international military forays can later be overcome as our Natioal Debt hitts over $40 trillian!

Zinn’s bravery, honesty, conscience and his life long assaults on injustice and fighting attacks on civil rights involved great personal risk on many occasions.

His life offers all of us an example that most of us will not be called upon to emulate but certainly allows us to understand as exemplary! His autobiography is an inspiring read.

Many of the ills which he stood against have not been vanquished but surfaced more in the Trump administration with his racism, his wish for tyranny, his lying but certainly he and his criminal family is looting of us tax payers is unhindered by the GOP!

Zinn’s book has such continuing relevance today as Humans on earth are probably in the most serious crisis of our existence with Unique challenges to our environment, our governance and threats to peace.

As noted initially Mark Twain’s quote on history: It never repeats itself, but only rhymes, we can only hope that humans have the foresight, courage and wisdom to enable humanity to survive!!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Los Angeles, CA, has spent over 60 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of 17 books: “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk”, “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”, “Trump: Pardon or Punish?: The Nixon Precedence Was Not A Trump Coup Denied!”, “Common Sense: When will Trump be Impeached, Indicted, and Exited?”, “Trump–unrestrained dangerous liar!”, “Our Ethnic Mix May Save Us!” and “Trump will be gone before November 3, 2026!”.

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