Howard Zinn and Paul Johnson
Howard Zinn and Paul Johnson Howard Zinn, born August 24, 1922, grew up in the slums of New York City. He recalls moving around a lot as his father ran candy stores during the Depression. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School and became a pipe fitter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was here that he met his wife, Roslyn Shechter. Zinn was a revolutionary and an activist. He spent his early life organizing labor rallies and participating in marches for civil rights. In 1943, Zinn joined the Army Air Corps in hopes of fighting the fascists. He served as a bombardier in a B-17. He left the Army and moved with his wife back to New York where they lived in a rat-infested basement. He worked at a local brewery and dug ditches for a living. Finally, the couple moved to public housing and Zinn attended college on the G.I. Bill. He received a B.A. at New York University, a master’s and a doctoral degree at Columbia. In 1956, Zinn took a job as chairman of the history department at Spelman College, but was later fired for attending and participating in a march for civil rights. He began teaching at Boston University in 1964. Fourteen years later, Zinn retired. On the day he retired, Zinn ended a class early and invited his students to join a picket line with him. Howard Zinn died January 27, 2010. (Powell) Paul Johnson was born on November 2, 1928 in Manchester, England. He attended Stonyhurst College and Magdalen College in Oxford. Johnson joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps after college and also served as captain in the Royal Army Educational Corps. While living in France, he was hired as assistant editor by the Paris periodical Realités. It was during this time that Johnson developed a left-wing political view. This was brought on when Johnson witnessed the police’s violent response to a riot. During the 1950s, he became a journalist, editor, and Paris correspondent for the New Statesman. Johnson moved back to London in 1955 and married