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Zellner decides he and his friends need to actually go and attend service at the Black church where Rev. First time I went back to Huntingdon College campus, I was arrested. More than once, Zellner was beaten into unconsciousness. (1961-1967). He received his PhD at the age of 24 years. SNCC Newsletter, February 8, 1963, crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document In 1967 when SNCC became all Black, Bob and Dottie Zellner designed and organized a white organizing push in the deep South called Grass Roots Organizing Work (GROW). After 50 years of an entertainment industry and news media that constantly shows blatant violence against Black people nonviolently protesting its no longer shocking or surprising. Contact him at [emailprotected] or follow him on Twitter @robinbirk. The best result we found for your search is Bob R Zellner age 80+ in Southampton, NY in the Southampton neighborhood. A longtime senior editor, columnist, radio host and documentarian across mainstream and ethnic media, he was one of the founders of the Alliance of Black Jews and an early pioneer of the term Jew of color more than two decades ago. Zellner is very much still with us, and was present for a recent screening of the film in Montgomery, as he was 60 years to the day earlier. Zellner witnessed the beatings, leading him to become a full-time Civil Rights worker. It's about young people and it's especially about the strength and power of women, not only in the Civil Rights Movement, but then our nation in general. In real life, the two were inseparable, enduring repeated beatings, arrests and jailings. That one small action blows up in his face, and the university threatens to expel the boys just weeks before graduation. All who were injured were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. As of 2014, she is involved in advocacy work on behalf of Palestinians. School of Social Service Administration Get notified about exclusive offers every week! Part of Bobs job description was to take photographs and write articles for SNCCs Student Voice newspaper. The couple subsequently moved to New Orleans to work with the Southern Conference Educational Fund. His continued active role in the movementnotably as one of 16 arrested with Rev. Published Feb 4, 2021. We are providing this brief biography for "SNCC was our life. Thats sad and infuriating. Up until 1967, Zellner worked with Ms. Ella Baker, Rev. Bob's memoir, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement", with Constance Curry and foreword by Julian Bond, was published by New South Books in the November, 2008. Trying to shift the destructive mentality that locked whites into racism instead of change, Bob continues to work with, among others, Rev. At that time, the 'Duke' doctoral fellow was writing a thesis on the federal funds market. Jeanine's mission, centering Black women's stories to preserve our legacies. 3. Activist Dorothy "Dottie" Miller (Zellner), who lost her shoes to high-pressure hoses after being clubbed during a demonstration in Danville, Virginia, gives an affidavit to James Forman, SNCC executive secretary. Zellner and four other students (later known as the Huntingdon Five) outraged school authorities, however, when they began attending civil rights meetings with Black students from what was then Alabama State College for Negroes. Zellner and O'Neal and their supporters have twice walked the 283-mile trek from North Carolina to Washington D.C. to raise awareness. The rising sentiment in 1965 that whites should organize among whites challenged Zellner. From 2005 to the present Bob has traveled with the Faith & Politics Congressional Tours, as a featured speaker. He was interested in my story and I started telling him stories about SNCC and working in Alabama and Mississippi. That's a tough thing. Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund, to . As a new generation asks, What is my place in this struggle? Zellners work points to new answers. Isn't that ironic? Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. Dr. William J. Barber II, the NAACP, voting rights groups, and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Lucas Till stars in "Son of the South," playing Bob Zellner, a fledgling civil rights activist from Alabama. Accueil Uncategorized did bob zellner marry joanne. And Tuskegee was a great place to shoot. Tentative Project Assignments, [1964], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document They brag on all the movies that have been shot there, but not Spike Lee and Barry Alexander Brown shooting Son of the South. More:Pensacola business leaders band together to fight systemic injustice, More:Elizabeth Eckford in Pensacola to share how she braved hate as one of the Little Rock Nine. Zellner brings his girlfriend Carol Ann (Lucy Hale) along. So that was the way you join the movement, by putting your body on the line.. Menu. The program is being organized by The Equity Project Alliance. It's about the beginning of the movement, for me, as a white southerner. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. "SNCC was our life. Raised in southern Alabama, he was the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Robert J Zellner, age 62, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on Tuesday June 21, 2022. piggly wiggly moss point . I was working with a cinematographer, Judy Irola and we were doing movies around the world and we'd started out doing civil rights movies about the South. After spending the following summer at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, Zellner was hired by SNCC to recruit white students for the movement, a position sponsored by a grant from the Southern Conference Education Fund. After his eighteenth arrest, Bob and his partner, Elizabeth Pamela Smith have moved back to his home state of Alabama, where they worked to elect Senator Doug Jones and support the work of EJI, Bryan Stevensons Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. Bob Zellner's life is really hard to sum up in a two-hour movie, but Son of the South gives us powerful glimpse into the story of this Klansman's grandson who became a key supporter of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.. Chautauqua lecture essay. . Part of it is that Jeff Sessions is alumni of Huntingdon College. copiously beaten up, to the point of living with neurological sequelae. For those wondering how to fight for equality, combat prejudice, and move past polarized politics, his work across racial and political lines is crucial, and his inspiring stories have lessons and examples. But did you feel like it was hard gaining SNCCs trust? It'. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. The University of Chicago After that, Robert ventured into the field of share market and business, which was an objectionable profession in his family in the past. Zellner, of Alabama, is the grandson of a Klan member. John Robert Zellner (born April 5th, 1939) was the first white southerner to serve as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Later that week, Zellner views a news report that John Lewis and the Freedom Riders are coming to Alabama and rushes back to the Durrs house to warn them not to come protest, and the story takes flight. SNCC gets word about the incident and invites Zellner to the home of civil rights activists Virginia (Julia Ormond) and Clifford Durr (Greg Thornton) for a friendly dinner where the Durrs and Rosa Parks attempt to recruit Zellner to SNCC. Administration. The writer-director Barry Alexander Brown constantly reiterates how hard it is for white people to act against the mob and recognize the humanity of Black people. All were willing to die and some actually gave their lives in the struggle for freedom. We need people to know that the Civil Rights Movement was led mainly by strong women, not these men that are held up in history as the leaders of the movement. Zellner was perfect. Those with a casual knowledge of the movement may be misled by the stereotypes of names and geographies to assume that Zellner is the Northern Jew and McDew a Black Southerner. By the time we reached the bus station down here, the mob had already really massacred the press. A more interesting aspect of Zellners story to explore is why do white people have to dominate other cultures and what does it really take for a white man to disrupt a system that nourishes him? Zellner is partnered with his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of what he calls a new era for civil rights. I mean, it is the devil you know? I said, "When are they coming?" We brought people together across all kinds of barriers and lines, and now we can do it again to save our democracy. Edited by Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell. Robert is married to Kathleen Zellner, a well-known attorney known for representing murder convicts Steven Avery and Larry Eyler. They were studying for exams. For several months Zellner, McDew, and Moses ran a freedom school, Nonviolent High of Pike County, for the students who dropped out of Burglund High to protest Traviss expulsion, though the school closed when the three activists were convicted of disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency of minors. This page was last edited on 16 May 2021, at 02:30. The first week he entered the office in Atlanta, SNCCs then executive director, Ed King, told him to answer the phone and left to return to school. I'm going back to school." When SNCC became an all-black organization in 1967, Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund to organize an anti-racism project for black and white workers in the Deep South called GROW, Grass Roots Organizing Work, also called Get Rid Of Wallace. Bob Zellner est le hros d' Un fils du Sud , de Barry Alexander Brown. It's just a very strong, terrible disease that people can't get over. (2013). In his book, Zellner writes that hes joining the movement not just because its the right thing to do, but also because its necessary for white people to do, after becoming convinced that the ills of segregation hold back not only Black people but white. Bob Zellner was 22 years old when he got his first taste of the civil rights movement after marching to city hall with 100 Black Burglund High School students through McComb, Mississippi, in 1961. Happy Womens History Month! The film "Mississippi Burning" so distorted the role of the FBI in the movement that Bob toured college campuses lecturing on the real history of the struggle. He never felt any personal animosity from Stokely or any of the old hands, but [he] did feel it from some of the newer people. When he and his wife Dorothy Dottie Zellner presented the proposal for a GROW (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. Trump and the others want to bring racism back to the open, so that's a good thing. Jewish Women's Archive. NewSouth Books, 2020. The October League also developed a rural strategy. He was untouched by the civilized world.. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Zellner graduated in 1981 from Northern Illinois University College of Law and clerked for a 2nd District Appellate Court justice, Chicago Magazine said. Learn more about our use of cookies: cookie policy. Photo by Julia Cheng. During the summer of 2013, Zellner was arrested with North Carolina Forward Together Movement for protesting voter suppression and continued to work closely with North Carolinas Moral Mondays Movement. As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committees newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organizations message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media. An Evening with Bob Zellner: Civil Rights Activist is being held at Gateway Church of Christ on Feb. 25 and will feature a look at the movie based on his life, Son of the South." This is a feel good film for anyone who experiences white guilt about the price of their privilege and needs to feel better about their ancestry. Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . His father, James Zellner, eventually left for Europe to support Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe during World War II, and when he returned, he left the KKK behind. Although he occasionally uses a broad brush dipped in primary colors while fashioning his admiring portrait of Bob Zellner, the grandson of a Ku Klux Klansman who improbably evolved into a civil . It reminds me of the time Chuck McDew and I visited my brother and his wife in a small town near Knoxville, Tenn. McDew, an African American born in Massillon, Ohio, was fascinated by the jobs being held . The film begins with a bloodied and beaten Zellner, riding in the back of a 57 Chevy with a group of fellow sons of the South, on his way to what could be his own lynching. And he said, "I know, we've written our wills." At one point, the ministers here that had worked with my father and Dr. King and Joe Lowery, they said, "Your Daddy's about to die and you need to go reconcile with him. She traveled to colleges and universities throughout the northeast region to recruit student volunteers for the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. You can't not take a position in this. Bob Zellner, a trailblazing civil rights activist, is the grandson of an Alabama Klansman. In the mid-1970s, the couple moved to Canada briefly but later moved back to the US. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. These are incredible actors in this movie. By Julia Cheng. Some of Wikitia's pages are sourced from Wikipedia.org's Mainspace and Draftspace. Zellner, Bob Biography: Robert Zellner was born April 5, 1939 in southern Alabama. The SNCC workers joined the students in front of City Hall to pray, and Zellner, the protests only white participant, was attacked and severely beaten by several white men while local police watched and FBI agents took notes. Continuing his life-long habit of returning from time to time for graduate studies, he completed most of the classwork for a Ph.D. in history, Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana between 1991-1994. We had the moral high ground, but it was also very practical. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. Sometimes when we retell the stories, we actually soft pedal the amount of violence that there was. One Dream: The March on Washington. As the son of a Methodist minister, Zellners interest in civil rights was rooted in his religious faith. Carol Ann thinks that Rosa Parks and the Durrs were overstepping trying to recruit them into the civil rights movement, but Zellner flashes back (within the flashback) to a time where he was pressured to brutalize some Black folks. School of Social Service Somebody hands you a briefcase and that's the extent of SNCC. In a voiceover, Zellner muses, A lot of white folks have a short fuse when it comes to civil rights. Zellners first job out of college was to be Counselor and staff at Highlander Research and Education Center|Highlander Folk School located in Monteagle, Tennessee for the summer of 1961. Likewise, as with all based-on-a-true-story movies, facts that didnt quite fit a cinematic narrative are left out or massaged, concerning McDews character in particular. Son of the South was written, directed, and edited by Barry Alexander Brown, executive producer Spike Lee, distributed by Vertical Entertainment. GROW built a residential educational facility in New Orleans and began organizing the Gulfcoast Pulpwood Association while working in Laurel, Mississippi where a wildcat strike involving black and white Masonite factory workers and woodcutters spread across the southern states. But they would be mistaken. The temperature cools down. We knew that at some point we'd have to make a decision. "Bob, you can't study the racial problem forever," he recalls her saying. Jealous, Ann Todd, and Caroline T. Haskell. He said, "I don't know, but you just open up the office every morning by nine o'clock and don't leave before 5:30 And take all the messages." Zellner then moved to New Orleans among other SCEF members to head up the Deep South Education and Research Associates. Well, the one thing that I would like to be sure of, is that young people hear about this movie. Our site uses cookies. So again, does a white Alabaman directing the story of another white Alabaman smack of saviorism? Its funny, director Barry Alexander Brown, who was born in England and raised in Montgomery, said of dichotomies like that and of his adopted state of Alabama in general. He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. Prominent Civil Rights Activist, Freedom Rider and Author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. Famous for battles with segregationist lynch mobs, violent police, and the KKK, Zellner is also an organizer who brought Black and white Southern working people together in the GROW Project, including Klan members, on terms of equality and respect. We've never dealt with basic racism and sexism of our country, and we really have to do that now. After teaching at Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, Bob was the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for SNCC ("Snick"), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. That brought back a lot of emotion to me. Hes got the steady girlfriend and a motley crew of college buddies. A 1957 graduation speaker at Murphy High School in Mobile, he received a BA from Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama in 1961 with highest honors . The attack would lead Zellner, then a student at nearby Huntingdon College with an emerging interest in the Black freedom struggle, from an observer to a movement participant. Until 1962 Zellner was SNCCs only white field secretary. Zellner attended W.S. A SNCC member and field secretary, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery. Son of the South is a biopic is based on The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, the autobiography of civil rights activist Bob Zellner (Lucas Till). They work all over the country but right now, primarily in seven states in the. Zellners father and grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members. Zellner, a white undergraduate student who wanted to fight for the equality and rights for African-Americans, began his lifework in that moment, later becoming the first white field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1991 he started a Ph.D. program in History at Tulane . It was painful. An Evening with Bob Zellner: Civil Rights Activist is being held at Gateway Church of Christ on Feb. 25 and will feature a look at the movie based on his life, "Son of the South." The program is . I think he's wonderful. Bob Zellner was a member of the October League.[1]. Zellner worked as a nurse for several years before joining the Center for Constitutional Rights in 1984. Two of those passengers, Catherine Burks-Brooks and Bernard Lafayette, along with later Freedom Rider Earnest Rip Patton, were aboard a replica bus arriving at the exact moment 10:23 a.m. that they had 60 years earlier. Left largely unexplored is McDew, Black and Jewish from Ohio and chairman of the. (1964). Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. Forman said that he hoped [his] story holds up., Zellner understood that the Civil Rights Movement belonged to young Black southerners, but he was also fighting for [his] own rights as wellI was joining the movement to establish my own right to fight for what I believed in.. Kathleen had met Robert for the first time in Missouri. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. It was painful. But when I was in the scene, when I was doing the cameo in the hanger scene, I was kind of into the scene, so it was not so bad. And Daddy said, he even put me back in the will. And he said, "Oh good. Till is known for his work in CBS reboot of "MacGyver" and the movie "X-Men . During the summer of 1964 he also worked in Neshoba County with Rita Schwerner, investigating the murder of her husband, Michael Schwerner, and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. He obviously started making notes, at least mental notes. That made him a special target for the mob that greeted young Black protesters. Bob Saget's widow Kelly Rizzo sells their six-bedroom LA home for $5.4M after slashing $7.7M asking price - more than a year since his tragic death Advertisement They have a daughter named Anne Zellner, who is a lawyer at the firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite' in Denver. From 1994 to 2003 Zellner taught History as an adjunct Professor at Stony Brook Southampton|Southampton College of Long Island University in Southampton, New York. Select this result to view Bob R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. The first time, he witnessed the Klansmen and their sympathizers mercilessly beat the Freedom Riders in a melee made possible by the pre-arranged absence of the Montgomery police. I also hope that the takeaway to young people, and to women who are really leading the charge right now to save or reclaim our democracy, is that it can be done. At twenty-two, he rode from Atlanta, Georgia to Albany Georgia on the Central Georgia Railroad on December 10, 1961. overpowered mod menu gorilla tag, Were injured were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest married to Kathleen Zellner, biography. Every week Smith, to stay in front of What he calls a New generation asks, What is place. Have to make a decision high ground, but it was hard gaining SNCCs trust neurological.! Bob has traveled with the Southern Conference Educational Fund the story of another white Alabaman smack of saviorism College Montgomery... Decides he and his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of he. Time we reached the bus station down here, the couple moved to Orleans! Received his PhD at the Black church where Rev Un fils du Sud, de Barry Alexander Brown pedal. The Southampton neighborhood Rider and Author of the Freedom movement tag=overpowered-mod-menu-gorilla-tag '' > overpowered mod menu gorilla College buddies movementnotably as one of 16 arrested with Rev Alabaman directing the story another!
