Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was a proud supporter of whistleblowers throughout his life. His career as an educator, scholar and activist, as well as the author of A People’s History of the United Stateswas dedicated to revealing difficult, unpopular but nevertheless important truths about American history. Zinn faced considerable opposition during his time teaching at Boston University, being threatened with termination for his vocal support of the campus labor union strikes and the student protests of tuition hikes that were happening at that time.

Stephen Kohn and family spending time with Howard and Roslyn Zinn

Howard Zinn was a teacher and mentor to David Colapinto and Stephen Kohn, partner of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto. David Colapinto recalls a time when Howard Zinn invited Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower behind the infamous Pentagon Papers that revealed corruption in the Vietnam War, to speak with the class about blowing the whistle on the American security establishment. Zinn was the advisor for the student-run newspaper BU Exposure which Stephen Kohn helped establish. BU Exposure was an activist paper dedicated to exposing the abuses of the school’s administration. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that when Colapinto and Kohn approached Zinn about founding a new organization dedicated to helping whistleblowers get the protection they deserve, Zinn was excited to take on the project.

Howard Zinn recognized a powerful need to expose wrongdoing in America, and he knew that protecting whistleblowers was one of the most effective ways to achieve that goal. Colapinto, Kohn and his brother Michael Kohn founded the National Whistleblower Center. Zinn remained a proud supporter of the National Whistleblower Center until his death in 2010.

Howard Zinn also wrote a powerful forward to Stephen Kohn’s book American Political Prisoners. In the book, Stephen Kohn discusses the prosecution of anti-war activists during World War One under the Espionage Act. The book worked to highlight how the Act had been abused in the past, and how, although there had been numerous objections, the Supreme Court and the Congress had thus far failed to address the law. While the Supreme Court and the Congress evidently regarded the law as a past problem that was not to be bothered with, Stephen Kohn foresaw the potential for the law to be used against those who object to the security administration of the United States in the future. That concern has since been validated by the indictments of Thomas Andrew Drake, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning under the Espionage Act. Consequently, the words Howard Zinn wrote to precede American Political Prisoners bear a new relevance today, and we believe so does much of the rest of Zinn’s work. These past few years have been marked by a vast increase in public attention paid to whistleblowers taking place at the same time as one of the toughest administrations on whistleblowers, as well as a series of popular movements where people have been demonstrating for real democracy, and real transparency from their government. Zinn’s work was always characterized by his courage and dedication to the truth, as well as a real dedication to connecting with his students and his readers. It’s what made him a great educator, mentor, writer, and friend. Honor his memory by ensuring whistleblowers get the protection they deserve.