BuzzFlash Reviews

May 2005

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (DVD, 2004)

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Howard Zinn, to use a cliché, walks the walk when it comes to social action -- and this is his story.

In this engrossing documentary, narrated by none other than Matt Damon, we get to track the making of a celebrated American committed to social justice. Zinn's record as an activist for peace, the poor, workers and the disenfranchised spans several decades. A professor of history after serving as a bombardier in World War II, he was a leader of the academic movement that tore down the walls of the ivory tower. History wasn't something to just be studied; it was something to be made.

Zinn is, in many ways, the anti-Bush. He is a man committed to those less fortunate and to peace because that is how he defines justice and community. Bush, on the other hand, is committed to helping the wealthier become wealthier, the poor become poorer, and to a world at war. Bush was born to a wealthy family of Episcopalian financiers and politicians and was only saved from obscurity by the luck of the privileged; Zinn pulled himself up by his bootstraps as the offspring of poor Jewish immigrants.

Zinn is known by many American students in secular public schools for his groundbreaking textbook, "A People's History of the United States." He's an inveterate optimist who believes that activism is an invigorating tonic when confronting oppressive forces.

Recently, Zinn returned to Spelman College to deliver the 2005 commencement speech. It was a bittersweet occasion, because he was fired in 1963 from Spelman, ironically, for leading civil rights protests at a black women's college in Atlanta. But, as always, he was full of hope in the power of individuals to improve themselves, their communities, and the world: "I am not suggesting you go that far, but you can help to break down barriers, of race certainly, but also of nationalism; that you do what you can -- you don't have to do something heroic, just something, to join with millions of others who will just do something, because all of those somethings, at certain points in history, come together, and make the world better.... Leap for the sun -- you may not reach it, but at least you will get off the ground. By being here today, you are already standing on your toes, ready to leap."

No, that speech is not in the documentary, which was made much earlier, but this moving film reveals the man behind those words.

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