Dr. Cornel West on Howard Zinn as a Public Intellectual

Text excerpts from his full presentation:
"Howard Zinn was a good man. He was a great man. He wasn't great like Alexander the Great. He wasn't great like Napoleon. He didn't conquer. He mustered the courage to be sensitive to the pain of people's suffering. And he lived it. He connected the struggle for justice with finding joy in serving others, so that the process had something to do with the profit. And that's the best that America has to offer.
"Howard Zinn understood the real secret of being a long distance runner for justice. He knew there was an intimate relation between the social and the spiritual. By spiritual, what I mean is being able to sustain your commitment...so that you're a marathon. He understood the relationship between the political and the personal, even before the feminist movement hit strong...He was that humble radical... I'm talking about the one that has fallen in love with those called everyday people...
"That's the Howard Zinn we talking about. I knew him for 41 years. We went to jail together. We laughed together. We tried to sing together... and I'll never forget the spirit of him. The connection between the economic and the existential. He was the kind of brother you wanted to go to jail with. You had fun in the cell with. Partly because he was an intellectual...He fundamentally believed that the life of the mind matters, that ideas make a difference, and it's important that you commit yourself not just to reading, but to thinking critically about what you're reading... There will never be a movement in America that doesn't take seriously the life of the mind! A public intellectual, a democratic intellectual, a radical intellectual, but still humble enough to use what he had in service for what we in the black church call, 'The least of these.'"

This event was hosted by Jeff Zinn and Andy Shallal.
Featured presenters:
Bernice Johnson Reagon, Amy Goodman, Cornel West, Dave Zirin, Beverly Daniel Tatum, Laura Flanders, Marian Wright Edelman, Medea Benjamin, Regie Cabico, Judy Richardson, Craig and Cindy Corrie, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Mary Beth Tinker, Phyllis Bennis, Barbara Ehrenreich, David Swanson, Kevin Zeese, Kymone Freeman, and more. Performances by Emma's Revolution and Chelsey Green. Host committee included presenters above and Myla Kabat-Zinn, Alice Walker, Barbara Lee, Bill Moyers, Stephen M. Kohn, Clarence Lusane, Brenda Coughlin, Anthony Arnove, Knox Tull, Makani Themba-Nixon, William Holtzman, Don Murray, Heather C. McGhee, and more.