I highly recommend this article by Alice Walker about Howard Zinn in the latest Boston Sunday Globe (http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/01/31/alice_walker_says_goodbye_to_her_friend_howard_zinn/).
I was gratified to see Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky and others appear in “Democracy Now”‘s tribute to Zinn a few days ago (democracynow.org). Zinn’s book collected historical facts about the US past that had not been part of the history taught in my school classrooms, opening many eyes to the powerful effects of brave and conscientious ordinary people and to the failings of the powerful who were praised as godlike in most history texts.
National Public Radio failed to honor Zinn’s work last Thursday, when, in the context of his obituary