Robert J Zellner, age 62, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on Tuesday June 21, 2022. This month he will share the life lessons he learned during the movement with a Pensacola audience. In a voiceover, Zellner muses, A lot of white folks have a short fuse when it comes to civil rights. Alabama with my new wife Pamela Smith to work with Senator Doug Jones and other southern progressives to, once and for all, confront our nation's foundational history of genocide against native peoples . Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. Bob Zellner. 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." 2. average weight of a high school basketball player. When we were kids, Granddaddy, he was just a sweet old man. He sounded country and he looked country. She lectures and writes frequently about the civil rights movement and co-edited Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. I was able to integrate with SNCC staff because I went to the most dangerous places and had to be beaten and threatened with a lynching along with all the rest of the sisters and brothers in SNCC, Zellner said. Bob Zellner, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek (Montgomery: New South Books, 2008). He grew up in rural Alabama, the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members and ministers. and his wife they . Tell me a little bit about the importance of shooting right here, where all of this really happened. John Robert "Bob" Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida. While in Russia, [] SNCC Field Secretary Arrested for Vagrancy While Walking on Campus in Montgomery, Alabama, January 9, [1963], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, far from being heroes of the movement, hounded Zellner's friend and mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, and launched the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) a U.S. government attack designed to destroy the Freedom Movement. Trying to shift the destructive mentality that locked whites into racism instead of change, Bob continues to work with, among others, Rev. Bob Zellner graduated from Murphy High School (Alabama)|Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama in 1957. He and the other members of the Equity Project Alliance believe it's important to remind everyone that the fight hasn't ended and we need to look at equity and inclusion and continue to understand how these systems are still very serious remnants of our dark past. Son of the South was written, directed, and edited by Barry Alexander Brown, executive producer Spike Lee, distributed by Vertical Entertainment. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a "GROW" (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. 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. 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. Thats part of what impressed McDew, then SNCCs chairman, to hire him. Bob Zellner est le hros d' Un fils du Sud , de Barry Alexander Brown. That's a positive thing, because as long as it's hidden, we're not dealing with it, but now it's so open, that we have no choice but to deal with it. Like other activists imbued in Marxism, Zellner used a materialist approach when organizing reforming Klansmen, focusing on concrete advantages of black-white unity rather than appealing to Christian brotherhood. (1961-1967). TV Shows. The program is being organized by The Equity Project Alliance. Director and Inspiration: Bob Zellner autographs his book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, while chatting with Barry Alexander Brown, the director of Son of the South, a film executive produced by Spike Lee about Zellners work in the Civil Rights Movement. 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. Detailing the efforts of her and her then husband Bob Zellner, she discusses her involvement in organizing . We're here, we're here in Montgomery. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. 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. We had the moral high ground, but it was also very practical. During 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Zellner coordinated volunteers and the Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi. Robert Zellner, in a plaid shirt, conducts a GROW workshop with workers in Laurel, Mississippi, undated, Dorothy M. and Robert Zellner Papers, WHS, The rising sentiment in 1965 that whites should organize among whites challenged Zellner. 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. 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. I was egging the people on to hang me! We didn't know they were racist or what that meant. During 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Zellner coordinated volunteers and the Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi. NewSouth Books, 2020. Son of the South does not tell a nuanced story. But Granddaddy lived until about 93. They have a daughter named Anne Zellner, who is a lawyer at the firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite' in Denver. As a new generation asks, What is my place in this struggle? Zellners work points to new answers. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. Well, Barry showed his genius as a script writer and an editor and a filmmaker. From 1957 to the spring of 1961, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, graduating with a BA in Sociology and Psychology. 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. Bob Zellner. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. He explained everything about the supply and demand balance issue to Robert. Later, Robert began operating as an independent speculator and eventually became the CEO of 'CitiCorp Futures Inc.' and 'CitiCorp Options.' As the grandson of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member and son of an . 2022 Son of The South Owner, LLC All rights reserved. Hes got the steady girlfriend and a motley crew of college buddies. Lucas Till stars in "Son of the South," playing Bob Zellner, a fledgling civil rights activist from Alabama. There was a reconciliation before the old man died. That one small action blows up in his face, and the university threatens to expel the boys just weeks before graduation. In the mid-1970s, the couple moved to Canada briefly but later moved back to the US. James Zellner, an itinerant Methodist preacher and member of the Ku Klux Klan, traveled to Europe during World War II to help support the Jewish resistance to the Nazis. At heart, Son of the South is a coming-of-age story with the Civil Rights Movement as a backdrop. Jim Forman arrived a week later with a tape recorder. He came up with the idea that it's about the transition. Robin Washington, an acclaimed veteran journalist based in Minnesota, is the Forwards Editor-at-Large. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. Brian Dennehy playing my grandfather. He was untouched by the civilized world.. it's okay, but you know M.O. It was very difficult to gain their trust, because I remember when James Forman finally made it to the SNCC office. Features thousands of biographic and thematic essays on Jewish women around the world. (1964). 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. Wikitia is not affiliated to Wikimedia Foundation, Honorary Doctor of Laws, St. Joseph College, New York (2002). . More than once, Zellner was beaten into unconsciousness. Zellner eventually joined SCEF and help lay the groundwork for GROW there. He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. I want to know everything about you, man, from the time you were born till right now. He did not quite trust Zellner, a white southerner. 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. They had busted all the cameras. There was a time in American cinema where the portrayal of Black bodies being brutalized by white racists was shocking. The story of these lynchings is told in the motion picture Mississippi Burning. Somebody hands you a briefcase and that's the extent of SNCC. Part of it is that Jeff Sessions is alumni of Huntingdon College. 0 likes. "Dorothy Miller Zellner." Until 1962 Zellner was SNCCs only white field secretary. When it comes to gender, frankly, the film got on my nerves. It was painful. 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. During that summer and the following year he was a trainee in nonviolence workshops led by James Lawson (activist)|James Lawson, John Lewis, and Diane Nash in Nashville, Tennessee. Kathleen had met Robert for the first time in Missouri. The project was also known as getting Rid of Wallace. It was at these meetings that Zellner met SNCC members for the first time. UPTO 50% OFF ON ALL PRODUCTS. Youre going to love SNCC, she told him. This page was last edited on 31 March 2021, at 08:29. 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. Bob Zellner, Bernice Reagon, Cordell Reagon, Dottie Miller (Zellner), and Avon Rollins singing in Danville, Virginia, June 1963, Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 66, dektol.wordpress.com, This campus activism caused Anne Braden to contact him. Until the time . One was non-violence as a way of life, and the other Everybody in SNCC agreed in the earliest SNCC, that we would all be non-violent in terms of our public demonstrations and so forth. She handled fundraising and helped screen volunteers for Freedom Summer. Julian MacQueen of The Equity Project met Zellner while practicing the Bah Faith in Fairhope, Alabama. 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. The museum is housed in the old Greyhound Station where Freedom Riders were attacked on May 20, 1961. At 'Fed Atlanta,' Robert got acquainted with a research fellow from 'Duke University' who was pursuing the same doctoral program. Stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi when it comes to civil movement... 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