Trump and the others want to bring racism back to the open, so that's a good thing. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. it's okay, but you know M.O. It was a hellish scene. 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. In the movie treatment, however, McDew is less expansive. Zellner also campaigned for social justice in Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia. 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 . The couple subsequently moved to New Orleans to work with the Southern Conference Educational Fund. From a family line of KKK members, Bob Zellner became one of the first white southerners to engage in the early civil rights movement. As the grandson of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member and son of an ex-KKK Methodist preacher, Zellners potential for relatability with white southern college students made him a unique target for the lynch mobs who often terrorized SNCC travelers. He organized sit-ins, rallies, investigations and speeches from Missouri to Massachusetts. While focusing on breaking the hold of George Wallace and the KKK on poor and working-class white people across the south, Bob Zellner debated George Wallace at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts when Wallace ran for president in 1968. We had to be, at least tactically, non-violent. 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. I said, "When are you coming back?" 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. I think he's wonderful. In the early 1990s, studying at Tulane University for a Ph.D. in History, Zellner wrote a dissertation on the southern civil rights movement. 351 pages. Bob Zellner's career as a civil rights activist, beginning in 1955 as a Murphy High School student, spans nearly seven decades. Mr. Zellner became SNCCs first white field secretary and was arrested 18 times with John Lewis and the Freedom Riders. Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. He's incredible. So that was the way you join the movement, by putting your body on the line.. We are providing this brief biography for 969 E. 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637 Living With Others: Challenges and Promises. It's like, yeah-. In a voiceover, Zellner muses, A lot of white folks have a short fuse when it comes to civil rights. 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. He grew up in rural Alabama, the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members and ministers. copiously beaten up, to the point of living with neurological sequelae. I hope they take away that people have, after this movie, is that it's a young people's movie. Twice Bob marched 273 miles in fourteen days, from Belhaven, North Carolina to Washington D.C., in an effort to save rural hospitals alongside over 100 community members, including Republican Mayor Adam ONeal & Rev. 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 . NewSouth Books, 2020. 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. A paper on race relations. It's about the beginning of the movement, for me, as a white southerner. Detailing the efforts of her and her then husband Bob Zellner, she discusses her involvement in organizing . 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. 0 likes. After working briefly in Atlanta, Zellner went to McComb, Mississippi, with Bob Moses and Chuck McDew for a SNCC planning session. A Comprehensive Document on Grass Roots Organizing Work (GROW), [1966], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Highlander, SSOC, and Organizing in the White Community: We Knew That We Were Not Free. I guess I was very lucky, because early on, our first staff meeting actually in SNCC, was in McComb, Mississippi. 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 Zellner, Bob, and Constance Curry. Bob Zellner was one of their important contacts who would greatly influence this strategy. 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. (1961-1967). 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. Raised in southern Alabama, he was the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. One Dream: The March on Washington. Trying to shift the destructive mentality that locked whites into racism instead . Select this result to view Bob R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. 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. And sometimes when I tell my university students that I was in jail with Dr. King and was mentored by Rosa Parks and written about by Eleanor Roosevelt in her last book, they say, "Did you meet Harriet Tubman or Abraham Lincoln?" The October League also developed a rural strategy. 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. He obviously started making notes, at least mental notes. Robin Washington, an acclaimed veteran journalist based in Minnesota, is the Forwards Editor-at-Large. He came up with the idea that it's about the transition. 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. Yet he was not following the trope of the white savior; a charge directly addressed, and discounted, in the film, as well as in Zellners 2008 autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, co-written with movement scribe Constance Curry. (R to L) James Foreman, Dottie Zellner, Julian Bond, Mike Sayer, and Bob Zellner. Bob Zellner, Winter 1963-1964, Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 18, dektol.wordpress.com. I met Barry through Judy Irola and she said that he was from Montgomery, graduated Sydney Lanier. 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. MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) The movie 'Son of the South' is now slated for release in theaters and online in February. The best result we found for your search is Bob R Zellner age 80+ in Southampton, NY in the Southampton neighborhood. It's a coming of age movie about a white southerner involved in the Civil Rights Movement and making the decisions, how incrementally you become committed. As the son of a Methodist minister, Zellners interest in civil rights was rooted in his religious faith. Updated: Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST. 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? He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. 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. I said, "I'm, Bob Zellner. Were happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. While in Russia, [] He was interested in my story and I started telling him stories about SNCC and working in Alabama and Mississippi. He was an English major for a while. Hes smart, top of his class, and on his way to graduate school up north. 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. Back then, Robert was more interested in the commodity markets but was equally fascinated to know a different perspective of the supply and demand chain. Learn more about our use of cookies: cookie policy. They have also lived in New Orleans, LA and New York, NY. How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? When his father broke away from the Klan, his mother made Sunday school shirts from the white robes. Memorial services will be at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday,. 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. 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 . 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. He started working for the 'Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.' Wikitia is not affiliated to Wikimedia Foundation, Honorary Doctor of Laws, St. Joseph College, New York (2002). Until the time . 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. Bob Zellner was white. Tentative Project Assignments, [1964], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense." This page was last edited on 16 May 2021, at 02:30. Bob Zellner [00:00], Volume 24, Highlander, SSOC, and Organizing in the White Community: We Knew That We Were Not Free, SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference, 2010, California Newsreel, Click Here to View Document 1 (866) 213-6794, centennial@ssa.uchicago.edu, Scholarship and Service in a Changing World. 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