Howard Zinn to receive Otis Social Justice Award
March 19, 2001
Writer, historian, activist and playwright Howard Zinn will be this year[base ']s recipient of Wheaton[base ']s Otis Social Justice Award. Zinn will be on campus to receive the award and to participate in the college[base ']s annual Otis Social Justice Symposium on Tuesday, March 27.
An insightful social critic and acclaimed historian, Zinn was born in New York in 1922 to Jewish immigrants. He worked as a shipfitter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard before going to war as a bombardier in the 1940s. At 27, he was as a freshman at New York University and later earned a Ph.D. at Columbia University.
As a professor at Atlanta[base ']s black universities in the 1950s, he joined then-students NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and Children[base ']s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman on the picket lines and sit-ins and supported their efforts with his writing. He teamed with Noam Chomsky to decry the Vietnam War, and continues to travel and lecture today.
Zinn argues that it is the social responsibility of the historian to do work that will help solve the conflicts human face. His well-known volume, A People's History of the United States 1492- Present, tells American history from the point of view of the powerless and disenfranchised, those whose circumstances are usually omitted from history books.
Zinn admits that the current American landscape of temporary workers, multinational corporations, and citizens' increasing isolation from one another hinders the formation of his cherished mass movements. ''Building a movement is difficult, given the fragmentation and isolation of people today and just the very diverse nature of the United States,'' says Zinn. ''But when people's outrage is felt strongly enough, a new social movement will be born.''
The Otis Social Justice Symposium will begin at 4 p.m. with a panel discussion on ''Academia and Activism.'' Panelists include Dolita Cathcart, instructor of history; John Miller, professor of economics; and students Lauren Hudecki '01, Lev Moscow '01 and Aldo Rinaldi '01. Professor of History Alex Bloom will moderate, and Otis Lecturer Howard Zinn will comment. The panel will be held in the Woolley Room in Mary Lyon Hall.
Zinn will deliver the keynote address at 7:30 p.m., discussing the uses of history and how historical knowledge is used to throw light on contemporary problems like race, class and the use of violence in international relations. The keynote address will be held in the Holman Room in Mary Lyon Hall.
Wheaton inaugurated the Otis Social Justice Award in 1990. This event brings the college community together to explore issues central to a just society: peace, world hunger, human rights and the protection of children. The event also honors the women and men who bring members of the community closer to compassionate action. These individuals receive the Otis Social Justice Award, which includes an honorarium that recipients may designate to the cause of their choice. Past recipients of the award have included former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, public school reform advocate Jonathan Kozol, feminist Gloria Steinem and Children's Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman.
The Otis Social Justice Symposium will be held in Mary Lyon Hall on Tuesday, March 27. The panel discussion is from 4-5 p.m. and the keynote address is from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. A reception and book signing will follow in the May Room in Mary Lyon Hall, The event is open to the public without charge and the location is wheelchair accessible. For further information, call the Office of Communications at 508-285-8235. For directions to Wheaton, go to www.wheatoncollege.edu/about/directions or call 508-286-5602.
Last updated on 3/23/01.
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