<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">A People's Historian</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="font-size: 17px;" class=""><i class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>For Howard Zinn</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">who will come to tell us what we know</div><div class="">that the king’s clothes are soiled with</div><div class="">the history of our blood and sweat</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">who memorializes us when we have been vanquished</div><div class="">who recounts our moments of resistance, explicates</div><div class="">our struggles, sings of our sacrifices to those</div><div class="">unable to hear our song</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">who speaks of our triumphs, of how we</div><div class="">altered the course of a raging river of oppression</div><div class="">how we turned our love for each other into a</div><div class="">garrison of righteous rebellion</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">who shows us even in failure, when we</div><div class="">have been less than large, when our own</div><div class="">prejudices have been turned against us like</div><div class="">stolen weapons</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">who walks among us, willing to tell the truth</div><div class="">about the monster of lies, an eclipse that casts</div><div class="">a shadow dark enough to cover centuries</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">what manner of man, of woman, of truth teller</div><div class="">roots around the muck of history, the word covered</div><div class="">in the mud of denial, the mythology of the conquerors</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">let them be Zinn, let them sing to the people of history</div><div class="">let their song come slowly, on the periphery of canon</div><div class="">of history departments owned by corporate prevaricators</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">let their song be sung in small circles, furtive meetings</div><div class="">lonely readers, underground and under siege</div><div class="">their song, the seed crushed to earth, and growing</div><div class="">now a tree, with fruit, multiplying truth.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Kenneth Carroll</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>