They have also lived in Freemansburg, PA. Not exactly, if you consider that neither are typical white Alabamans. Zellners father and grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members. He was definitely checking me out. They have a daughter named Anne Zellner, who is a lawyer at the firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite' in Denver. Bob Zellner is known for Son of the South (2020), Breath of Freedom (2014) and Moyers & Company (2012). If he is still at it today, he nearly lost it many times in the process. At that time, the 'Duke' doctoral fellow was writing a thesis on the federal funds market. Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. 2. Zellner, Bob, and Constance Curry. It reminded me of Nazi Germany. Yeah. Bob Zellner, civil rights activist and author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, sent this . The men attempted to drag Zellner away from the other protesters, but Zellner clung to a railing until police finally pulled him off to arrest him, along with the other SNCC workers and 119 students. Well, the paradigm, it is just the story of one of our freedom songs we had in the movement, that freedom is a constant struggle, because after the Civil Rights Movement, we never thought that women's rights would be challenged again, or that anyone would try to restrict the vote to white people ever again, or labor rights would be restricted, but what's happened is that the Civil Rights Movement, there was tremendous reaction against the Civil Rights Movement and the right wing really dug in and did the kind of grassroots community organizing that the movement had done. Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the Black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern "way of life." . . Well, my grandfather, he never changed his stance about supporting the Ku Klux Klan. And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." They work alongside Common Power, an organization that encourages civic action through community, education and investment in a next-generation of leaders. He ran as a Democrat in District #1 (heavily GOP) for New York State Senate. It got me into thinking about nonviolence. My father was disowned by his father and his mother and his brothers never spoke to him again in his whole life. Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Indianapolis (2019). 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. In the mid-1970s, the couple moved to Canada briefly but later moved back to the US. The Zellners also work with Shirts Across America out of Seattle, Washington, where they teach children history, help them become civic leaders in their communities. It was very difficult to gain their trust, because I remember when James Forman finally made it to the SNCC office. With Showing Up for Racial Justice organizers in North Carolina. Son of the South tells how Zellner chose to work for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960s. Jeanine is a Writer, Actor, member SAG/AFTRA, AEA, Podcast host,. It's like when President Obama was elected, everybody said, "Oh, we can relax now," and everybody relaxed and look what happened. Louise Palmer Zellner, 93, formerly of Emmaus Ave., Allentown, and Hellertown, passed away Thursday, February 23, 2023. Bob Zellner. At twenty-two, he rode from Atlanta, Georgia to Albany Georgia on the Central Georgia Railroad on December 10, 1961. Alas, thats the line left out of the movie, with McDews character cut out at that point. 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. I was privileged to meet Bob Zellner at the Virginia Festival of the Book in March of 2010. His long list of academic accomplishments had every course but business. If we had shown arms and openly been prepared to fight with arms, we would have been wiped out. It's very sad that Huntingdon College, where a huge part of the script takes place, that they weren't able to bring themselves to welcome us to shoot on the campus. 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. by JWA StaffOur work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. Far more dramatic incidents detailed in Zellners book are left unexplored, such as his narrow brush with death in Danville, Virginia, even more dangerous that those he faced in the Deep South. 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. 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., James Forman and Bob and Dottie Miller (Zellner) in Danville, Virginia, 1963, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 177, dektol.wordpress.com. Tell me about what your feelings were during that situation? Zellner was charged with everything from criminal anarchy in Baton Rouge to "inciting the black population to acts of war and violence against the white population" in Danville, VA. From 1963 to 1965, Zellner studied race relations in the Graduate School of Sociology at Brandeis University. "Dorothy Miller Zellner." In the early 1990s, studying at Tulane University for a Ph.D. in History, Zellner wrote a dissertation on the southern civil rights movement. Rencontre avec un homme de convictions. So Bob, tell me a little bit about meeting Barry and beginning this relationship where he's taking your story and making it into a film? MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) The movie 'Son of the South' is now slated for release in theaters and online in February. Hollywood loves to see Black women and men brutalized on screen and Son of the South isnt afraid to go there. The film does convey the real dangers Zellner experienced, including a near-lynching, as well as his complicated relationship with his Klansman grandfather (Brian Dennehy, in his last major role), who threatens to himself shoot Zellner if he continues his activism, while at the same time making arrangements for a family dinner. This changed when one day, Robert came to know that he might have to move to Vietnam. I hope it does, and if so, I have a suggestion: Bring back the character of McDew to make a buddy show, about a Black Jewish guy from the North teamed up with the white grandson of a Klansman, working for SNCC in the most dangerous days of the movement. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search. Bob Zellner is the hero of "A Son of the South", by Barry Alexander Brown. At 'Fed Atlanta,' Robert got acquainted with a research fellow from 'Duke University' who was pursuing the same doctoral program. 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. What he did do was, when my father left the KU Klux Klan, he had disowned my father. His first campaign through SCEF was the GROW project, Grass Roots Organizing Work, in rural towns such as Laurel, Mississippi. 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. It's amazing how they can reconcile those things. He continues his activism and in April 2013 was arrested for protesting North Carolinas voter ID law. He also serves as an organizational consultant for Shirts Across America (SAA), a Youth leadership organization. SNCC Newsletter, February 8, 1963, crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document 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. 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. He was an English major for a while. As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization's message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media.Zellner was arrested at a CORE demonstration in Miami in 1960 and participated in sit-ins in New Orleans before joining Julian Bond as co-editor of the Student Voice, which . Son of the South is a perfect elixir to soothe the wounds inflicted by the conspiracy theory believing far-right relatives that every liberal white person apparently deals with, back in the middle-American home town they escaped from. Today, MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as implicit bias. 351 pages. TV Shows. The moral high ground was that we were not going to fight back. The Woodcutters Union Campaign, from 1967 to 1979 mobilized thousands of black and white pulp and timber workers. I thought it was a huge ongoing affair, but the staff was just getting together, so I was on the ground floor without really realizing it. 2. 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 Their work supplied the Civil Rights Movement with its most significant assets, including the power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing. First time I went back to Huntingdon College campus, I was arrested. Zellner witnessed the beatings, leading him to become a full-time Civil Rights worker. Zellner also Campaigned against David Duke in Louisiana when the former Klansman ran for governor claiming that he was no longer a racist. Born in Alabama on 5 April 1939, John Robert Zellner was the second of James Abraham Zellner and Ruby Hardy Zellner's five sons. (1967-1980). Or was he die hard to the day he died about his stances? Published Feb 4, 2021. A 1957 graduation speaker at Murphy High School in Mobile, he received a BA from Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama in 1961 with highest honors . A man escaped slavery by mailing himself to freedom. However, he still planned to move to Vietnam. It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense.. Since 2014, he also tours twice a year with Project Pilgrimage as a Traveling Historian. They had busted all the cameras. It's Zellner who's "The Son of the South" a white preacher's kid from Alabama and the grandson of a Klansman. Arrested 18 times in seven states, he organized in McComb, MS., Albany, GA, Danville, VA, Talladega, Montgomery, and Birmingham, AL, as well as New Haven, CT, and Boston. Fill out this simple form to send an email to a friend who might enjoy this page. Robert took up the fellowship at the 'University of Florida.' Our site uses cookies. It was painful. Abernathy (Cedric the Entertainer) will be guest preaching and Rosa Parks (Sharonne Lanier) will be in attendance. As the grandson of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member and son of an . In 1963, he helped integrate the library and lunch counters in the segregated mill town of Danville, Virginia, the last capitol of the Confederacy. Beginning in the mid-sixties Bob worked on documentary and feature films, traveling to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico. His commitment to the Movement was continually, and often violently, tested by white supremacists. Dr. William Barber in the civil disobedience that kicked off the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina in 2013presents a message informed by direct experience that provides tools for organizing in todays fight for justice. The courage and vision that they shared of a world not stunted by racism inspired me. What went through my head was the similarity of my fellow white southerners acting like Nazis, because by the time we got there, they had busted all their suitcases and all the students had books. SNCC was our life. (2003). Template:TOCnestleft Because they were instructed to prioritize urban areas like Atlanta, they relied on developing regional contacts to build their organization in the countryside. The documentary is airing periodically on PBS through 2010. A SNCC member and field secretary, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery. Was it you guys are just at the church, "Well, we're not really, we're just here to write a paper and I'm not getting involved with anything.". Like, how did he meet his wife, activist Dottie Zellner (also white and worked for SNCC)? We interview Son of the South stars Lucas Till and Lex Scott Davis about what they think viewers can take from the film, parallels to today, and more. 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