He is the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, but has risked his life in the fight to achieve The Second Emancipation. He said that little land that he left me doesn't mean anything. It was painful. There is so much nuanced relevance to Mr. Zellners life story and his role in the civil rights movement, but sadly Son of the South uses broad easy strokes to attempt to tell a complex American story. Bob Zellner's career as a civil rights activist, beginning in 1955 as a Murphy High School student, spans nearly seven decades. Well, Barry showed his genius as a script writer and an editor and a filmmaker. They were awarded compensatory and punitive damages. 2. Zellner, Bob Biography: Robert Zellner was born April 5, 1939 in southern Alabama. Zellner is partnered with his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of what he calls a new era for civil rights. I'm sorry, I'm emotional. Bob Zellner, an Alabama-born and raised son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, was a student when the Freedom Riders came through his college town in Alabama in 1960. In real life, the two were inseparable, enduring repeated beatings, arrests and jailings. When Bob was in college he was assigned to write a paper on the aftermath of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by iconic activist Rosa Parks, and the race relations . It'. In 1962, Zellner organized workshops on nonviolence for students at Talladega College in Alabama, preparing students for lunch counter sit-ins and marches. He is a graduate of Denmark High School, Class of 1980. . He was untouched by the civilized world.. Just because a movie has Spike Lees name attached to it, doesnt mean its gonna be revolutionary. What he did do was, when my father left the KU Klux Klan, he had disowned my father. It's not the Pacific Ocean. Schumers mother was a volunteer on Zellners State Senate campaign, so both of them organized vigorously for her son, the future US Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer. Part of it is that Jeff Sessions is alumni of Huntingdon College. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ms. Rosa Parks, Julian Bond, John Lewis, Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), James Forman, Bayard Rustin, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger. I just didn't want to believe that that's why, that they had a problem with the script or the situation. In December 1961, Bob took part in Freedom Rides and was subsequently jailed with Martin Luther King Jr. in Albany, Georgia. Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? Zellner himself became a candidate in 1998 while teaching Civil Rights History at LIU in eastern Long Island. 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. And now we have to say, "Well, unfortunately we weren't able to shoot there. by JWA StaffOur work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. Hollywood loves to see Black women and men brutalized on screen and Son of the South isnt afraid to go there. Anything you want to leave the audience with? https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/robert-zellner-44847.php. And dont worry about the savior bit: My bet is that McDews character will steal the show. Select this result to view Linda R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. 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, you can't study the racial problem forever," he recalls her saying. Always active with his wife Pamela, always on the go, he sees . Dr. Bob Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 and raised in south Alabama, the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. We brought people together across all kinds of barriers and lines, and now we can do it again to save our democracy. As the son of a Methodist minister, Zellners interest in civil rights was rooted in his religious faith. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace. Time Magazine. The script called for him to needle Zellner about being white and regard him with suspicion until Zellner proved himself, something the real McDew didnt agree to because it just wasnt true, both Brown and the real Zellner told me. Did he ever come around? A Federal jury, in 2007, agreeing with civil rights attorney Frederick Brewington, ruled that Zellner and the Shinnecock were victims of false arrest, malicious prosecution, and denial of civil rights. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Civil Rights activist Bob Zellner to share his fight with Pensacola, Pensacola business leaders band together to fight systemic injustice, Elizabeth Eckford in Pensacola to share how she braved hate as one of the Little Rock Nine. Robert and Kathleen married soon after her first semester ended. The series chronicled the life of Kathleen's client, murder convict Steven Avery. Meeting them then and now was Zellner. Soon after, he was appointed one of the first field secretaries and certainly the first Southern white one of the nascent SNCC. One Dream: The March on Washington. Until 1962 Zellner was SNCCs only white field secretary. 969 E. 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637 Carrying forward the tradition, Robert was never keen on venturing into speculation. Providing historical perspective, Bob has been a Guest Lecturer for Common Power. I hope it's a young people's movie and I really hope that it comes through as a women's movie, because SNCC was led by strong women. 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. They were sentenced to four months in jail and fined. Potomac Books, 2014. Following Nixon's ping-pong diplomacy in 1972, Bob Zellner spent six weeks in China visiting paper plants, studying pulpwood harvesting, and lecturing at the National Institute for Minorities in Peking on SNCC, SCEF and multicultural work in the white community. The most emotional part was when I saw the actors taking Lucas Till, the actor that plays me, taking him out of the car to take him down to the tree. The October League also developed a rural strategy. If you fought back, you'd just continue the enmity. Jim Forman arrived a week later with a tape recorder. Well, the way I first met Barry Alexander Brown is in New York City, when we were both working on different kinds of films and movies. Those were people that you had to take a tremendous risk to follow them. John Seigenthaler had been beaten in the head with a pipe and kicked her under a car for dead. Zellner earned a doctorate in history from Tulane University in the 1990s and until his retirement taught the history of the civil rights movement at Long Island University. Find Bob Zellner's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. He graduated from Huntingdon College in 1961 and that year became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as its first white field secretary. He later moved to Wilson, North Carolina. While teaching in the Hamptons, Bob worked with the Shinnecock Nation on a campaign to stop the bulldozing of ancestral burial grounds for an upscale housing sub-division in Southampton, New York. Maybe because it concentrates on a personal journey and an authentic Alabama one, its free from the stilted, hold-your-hand language of offerings such as Ava DuVernays Selma, in which Martin Luther King is told John Lewis from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is here to see you, with Kings aides pronouncing each syllable in a slow staccato as opposed to a quick Snick that they more likely would have said, and which mainstream audiences wouldnt have likely understood. But it didnt make the final cut. His father, James Zellner, was a Methodist minister and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, a group to which his grandfather had also belonged. Jealous, Ann Todd, and Caroline T. Haskell. They have also lived in New Orleans, LA and New York, NY. If we had wanted to create him, we couldnt have done a better job, McDew wrote in his autobiography, Tell The Story, released posthumously last year. The film follows his story, that of a young white man who fights for the rights of black people in the racist America of the 1960s. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Or was he die hard to the day he died about his stances? He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. UPTO 50% OFF ON ALL PRODUCTS. Because they were instructed to prioritize urban areas like Atlanta, they relied on developing regional contacts to build their organization in the countryside. How scary was that? Anthology. The son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, Zellner may have been the unlikeliest of allies to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Zellner was SNCCs first white field secretary. His story is coming to Pensacola. I went to the SNCC office, the address that I had, and there was one person there, sitting in this almost empty office. Still, its as good a telling as you ever get from a major motion picture, capturing the bona fides Brown aspired to achieve. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. Zellner, of Alabama, is the grandson of a Klan member. We had to go to Tuskegee." After that, there was not a lot of question with the early SNCC people about my commitment, but I also realized that white privilege, would lead me go back to being white at any time that I wanted to, had I chose to do so, but I made a commitment that I wouldn't, so I tried to live up to that. Founded by Congressman John Lewis and Methodist minister Rev. I thought I'd be able to go into graduate school, maybe be a minister or something and have a more normal life, but it was not a normal time. I was egging the people on to hang me! 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). Because President West, Cam West, had taken a very courageous stand when the book came out in 2008. During Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 he traveled with Rita Schwerner while taking part in SNCC's and CORE's investigation of the disappearance of her husband Mickey, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. It's Zellner who's "The Son of the South" a white preacher's kid from Alabama and the grandson of a Klansman. That made him a special target for the mob that greeted young Black protesters. average weight of a high school basketball player. So you went to Atlanta to SNCC, right? (R to L) James Foreman, Dottie Zellner, Julian Bond, Mike Sayer, and Bob Zellner. Happy Womens History Month! They work alongside Common Power, an organization that encourages civic action through community, education and investment in a next-generation of leaders. Bob Zellner From Wikitia 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). Kathleen had met Robert for the first time in Missouri. 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. Part of Bobs job description was to take photographs and write articles for SNCCs Student Voice newspaper. Dorothy Zellner reflects on her experience as one of the early organizers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Neil High School in Brewton, Alabama and graduated from Murphy . It was painful. Bob Zellner, a trailblazing civil rights activist, is the grandson of an Alabama Klansman. After graduating from Mobiles Murphy High School in 1957, Bob Zellner attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, where he took a course in race relations and attended a workshop held by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Fee Range $20,001 - $30,000 *. Hence, Robert began searching for a new research fellowship program. But Granddaddy lived until about 93. The KKK arrives at the University to set those five white boys straight. 4. Zellner decides he and his friends need to actually go and attend service at the Black church where Rev. Since 2014, he also tours twice a year with Project Pilgrimage as a Traveling Historian. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. 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. Zellner worked as a nurse for several years before joining the Center for Constitutional Rights in 1984. 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 . Bob is related to Margaret R Zellner and Linda Ann Miller. Well, it's very important to shoot it right here. Thats sad and infuriating. That may lead to a TV series, Zellner said. A lot of people see it as a moderate or a even cowardly stance, but it took a tremendous amount of courage to be non-violent in those situations. madonna album sales worldwide soldiers and sailors memorial auditorium events jeffrey disick death brightness of a colour crossword clue 4 letters nba 2k22 lakers all time roster (2016- present). But the post-traumatic stress is stressful for me and also for my partner, my . Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . Bob Zellner, a trailblazing civil rights activist, is the grandson of an Alabama Klansman. Robert J Zellner, age 62, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on Tuesday June 21, 2022. (2013). Raised in southern Alabama, he was the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Zellner eventually joined SCEF and help lay the groundwork for GROW there. All who were injured were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But it means a lot that he put me back in the will. 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. Zellner brings his girlfriend Carol Ann (Lucy Hale) along. Witnessing History: Former SNCC field secretary Bob Zellner stands next to a poster of Son of the South, a film about his work in the Civil Rights Movement, at a screening in Montgomery, Alabama. Today, MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as implicit bias. Listening to Bob Zellner speaking about organizing working class and poor white people. That's when they beat me really badly, and almost hanged me that day. 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. 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. Request Speaker. it's okay, but you know M.O. That was my introduction for SNCC. 3. (Viewed on March 2, 2023) . While attending Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabamaan all-white Methodist schoolZellner was given a sociology assignment to research solutions to racial problems in the South. jonathan davis wife renee perez; md high school volleyball rankings. After beginning graduate study on race relations and sociology at Brandeis University, Zellner took a leave of absence in 1964 to coordinate SNCCs efforts in Greenwood. While in Russia, [] Thats part of what impressed McDew, then SNCCs chairman, to hire him. The violence that Zellner and his colleagues were subjected to was astounding. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. It's really virulent here in the South, and it's easy to revert to that. I had met church people strong in faith, but until then I had never seen such a dedicated soldiers, he remembered. The best result we found for your search is Bob R Zellner age 80+ in Southampton, NY in the Southampton neighborhood. During the visit McComb students organized a march to protest the murder of Herbert Lee and the expulsion of Brenda Travis and Ike Lewis from Burglund High School. Organizing in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia, GROW helped to start the Gulf Coast Pulpwood Association. [Revolution in the Air Max Elbaum page 200], Deep South Education and Research Associates, Building Revolution in the South: The Southern Conference Educational Fund and the New Communist Movement, 1968-1981 A Senior Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the Department of History In Candidacy for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in History, https://keywiki.org/index.php?title=Bob_Zellner&oldid=512831, GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later. (2012). And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." 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. Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. I mean, it is the devil you know? Robert found a scheme called the 'National Defense Education Act Title IV Fellowships' sponsored by the Department of Defense. The program focused on technical subjects. 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