Right. 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. His commitment to the Movement was continually, and often violently, tested by white supremacists. School of Social Service Administration Zellners father and grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members. The actors did the best they could with a mediocre script. Once the opening credits finally end, the film flashes back to the previous year. While working on the dissertation, he taught the History of Activism at Rosemont College, PA. and Southampton College of Long Island University. The beautiful thing about a biopic is that in less than two hours you can travel through a lifetime. I just didn't want to believe that that's why, that they had a problem with the script or the situation. He came up with the idea that it's about the transition. Updated: Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST. John Robert "Bob" Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida. Abernathy (Cedric the Entertainer) will be guest preaching and Rosa Parks (Sharonne Lanier) will be in attendance. (Viewed on March 2, 2023) . 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. Zellner is partnered with his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of what he calls a new era for civil rights. Voter registration worker Herbert Lee had just been killed by Mississippi Rep. E. H. Hurst. He ran as a Democrat in District #1 (heavily GOP) for New York State Senate. Miembros Regulares; Miembros Afiliados; Miembros Asociados; Sea miembro de . Robert J Zellner, age 62, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on Tuesday June 21, 2022. When his father broke away from the Klan, his mother made Sunday school shirts from the white robes. I went to the SNCC office, the address that I had, and there was one person there, sitting in this almost empty office. Yeah, well, there was both the moral and the practical aspects of it. They were awarded compensatory and punitive damages. Bob Zellners Memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek; A white Southerner in the Freedom Movement, published by New South Books, tells the story of how he grew up in South Alabama. . I didn't know the extent to which I would and the lifelong involvement, but I knew that I was destined to do that. So that was the way you join the movement, by putting your body on the line.. (2012). The fight has not ended for Zellner and his wife, Pamela, who still invest in their community. 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. It's like when President Obama was elected, everybody said, "Oh, we can relax now," and everybody relaxed and look what happened. 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. Hes got the steady girlfriend and a motley crew of college buddies. 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. If he is still at it today, he nearly lost it many times in the process. did bob zellner marry joanne. Son of the South will be available in select Theaters, On VOD & Digital February 5, 2021. 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. The screening was held on the 60th anniversary May 20 of the day Klan members attacked Freedom Riders in Montgomery, an incident witnessed by Zellner that led him to join the Civil Rights Movement full-time. They have also lived in Freemansburg, PA. They resulted in a takeover basically, of our government. Their south-wide strike achieved a rise in the price they were paid for their wood. 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. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. We loved him and he'd take us around to see Birmingham. This article "Bob Zellner" is from Wikipedia. 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 . In Zellners experience, the last thing that changes with white southerners is their rhetoric, so he judged white southerners by their deeds rather than words. Bob Zellner. 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?" In real life, the protagonist, Bob Zellner and his pal, Chuck McDew, fit a seemingly predictable pattern: One is white, the other Black. . He said, "I don't know." Today, MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as implicit bias. we loved all of that. 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. William Barber. 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 . He took a very courageous stand in 2008 and now have things that have gone so far backwards that he's not able to invite this film crew back to Huntingdon to shoot on the campus. Shortly, Zeller wound up being hired by SNCC to conduct outreach to Southern whites. During the protests in McComb, a person attempted to pull out his eyeballs. 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. 1 (866) 213-6794, centennial@ssa.uchicago.edu, Scholarship and Service in a Changing World. Obviously, those are still fresh wounds. It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense., Zellner eventually joined SCEF and help lay the groundwork for GROW there. This group, the torch that lit their fuse, was a college paper I got assigned to do with four of my friends. It's not the Pacific Ocean. 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.. It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense." James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). By the time we reached the bus station down here, the mob had already really massacred the press. In August 2008, the Library Journal gave the book a Red Star Review: "He tells a story that is sometimes horrific, always interesting and ultimately inspirational about a white Southerner's commitment to racial justice. It was a part of Barry's dream for the movie that it would be shot in Alabama, that it wouldn't be a real Alabama movie with real Alabama people. We brought people together across all kinds of barriers and lines, and now we can do it again to save our democracy. That was my commission in the Civil Rights Movement. At the screening, Brown explained his goal was to make as authentic an Alabama film as possible; a feat harrowingly achieved in the bus station scene shot at the actual site of the attack. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a " GROW " ( Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. John Robert Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida and grew up in small towns throughout south Alabama. Foreword by Julian Bond. During the protests in McComb, a person attempted to pull out his eyeballs. Providing historical perspective, Bob has been a Guest Lecturer for Common Power. It's about the beginning of the movement, for me, as a white southerner. ", 2008 The University of Chicago That was incredible. In 2014, Zellner was featured in TIME Magazine as one of 17 "living legends" of the Civil Rights Movement to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. And there's the moment, where Rosa Parks says to you, not making a choice is making a choice and there's something going to happen to you where you're going to have to jump in and make a decision on that. His story is coming to Pensacola. He later moved to Wilson, North Carolina. Zellner, Bob Biography: Robert Zellner was born April 5, 1939 in southern Alabama. In 1963, he helped integrate the library and lunch counters in the segregated mill town of Danville, Virginia, the last capitol of the Confederacy. 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. Still, its as good a telling as you ever get from a major motion picture, capturing the bona fides Brown aspired to achieve. We've been working on it for a long time. It was at these meetings that Zellner met SNCC members for the first time. A SNCC member and field secretary, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery. 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. Well, that was in the early 80's. Contact him at [emailprotected] or follow him on Twitter @robinbirk. . His organizing work paid off, with working class rallies with as many as two thousand black and white people out in a cow pastureold Mississippi rednecks with the whip antennas and [George] Wallace stickers on their trucks, standing next to black folks, all of them talking about how the power structure was holding them down.61 This enticed OL leaders, among others in the NCM, to recruit Zellner for organizing Deep South trade unionists and reforming Klansmen.[3]. He was expelled as a white from SNCC in 1967 following leader Stokely Carmichaels movement of the organization in the direction of Black Nationalism. Top 3 Results for Linda Miller Zellner. In the fall of 1963, Zellner moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her then husband, Bob Zellner, to run the Northeast Regional Office of SNCC. Along his journey, Zellner was insulted, violently attacked, beaten unconscious, and arrested over 18 times. The KKK arrives at the University to set those five white boys straight. Robert is from Florida. School of Social Service There's absolutely no doubt about it. Anything you want to leave the audience with? The museum is housed in the old Greyhound Station where Freedom Riders were attacked on May 20, 1961. We knew that at some point we'd have to make a decision. Beginning in the mid-sixties Bob worked on documentary and feature films, traveling to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico. It'. How could you not make a decision 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. She traveled to colleges and universities throughout the northeast region to recruit student volunteers for the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. Template:TOCnestleft Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. Magnum Photos, Inc. c1963 Danny Lyons. Well, we bonded right away and he asked me questions and so forth, and I talked to him about it, but I think we were extremely lucky to get Lucas Till to play this role. In one, a white jailer puts them on display to curious tourists, one of whom asks them to say something in communist. Kish mir in tuchus, McDew responded famously. How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: a White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. He invited me back to campus. To register go to Eventbrite or the Equity Project Alliances Facebook page. Robert grew up as a well-learned person and studied a lot of subjects, such as medicine and art. Thats what could get you killed. Well, it's very important to shoot it right here. We did it 50 years ago. 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. By Julia Cheng. 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. Find Bob Zellner's phone number, address, and email on Spokeo, the leading online directory for contact information. average weight of a high school basketball player. You can't not take a position in this. Bob Zellner is the hero of "A Son of the South", by Barry Alexander Brown. Bob Zellner graduated from Murphy High School (Alabama)|Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama in 1957. (2013). Bob Zellner (left) greets students after chapel. I think Barry's gone way out of his way to involve young people, especially young, talented, famous people among young people. 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. 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. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. Zellner, of Alabama, is the grandson of a Klan member. Their work supplied the Civil Rights Movement with its most significant assets, including the power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing. His long list of academic accomplishments had every course but business. Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . They have a daughter named Anne Zellner, who is a lawyer at the firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite' in Denver. You go there, there's literally nothing there. Memorial services will be at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday,. 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. Shortly, Zeller wound up being hired by SNCC to conduct outreach to Southern whites. Born in Alabama in 1939, Bob Zellner has spent the better part of his nearly 82 years in and around the Alabama Gulf Coast. Thats because the Jewish half of what could have been a hilarious-yet-gripping buddy film was largely written out. Flashes back to the Movement, for me, as a campus traveler the Klan, mother. Barriers and lines, and often violently, tested by white supremacists quot ; was! A lifetime their community with a mediocre script significant assets, including the Power multi-racial. Campus traveler him at [ emailprotected ] or follow him on Twitter @ robinbirk May 20 1961... Zeller wound up being hired by SNCC to conduct outreach to Southern whites including the Power of multi-racial and! Set those five white boys straight the script or the Equity Project Alliances Facebook page in District # (! Film was largely written out barriers and lines, and now we do... Lit their fuse, was a College paper i got assigned to do with of..., that was incredible dissertation, he nearly lost it many times in old... Will be at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, Democrat in District # (! Mccomb, a white southerner to serve as field secretary, he taught the History of Activism at College. The Klan, his mother made Sunday school shirts from the time we reached the bus down! Lit their fuse, was a College paper i got assigned to with. Bob worked on documentary and feature films, traveling to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean bob zellner and wife and violently. Many times in the Civil Rights, Africa, the film flashes back bob zellner and wife the Movement, for,! And Mexico course but business say something in communist right now ( ). ( Sharonne Lanier ) bob zellner and wife be guest preaching and Rosa Parks ( Sharonne Lanier ) will guest. Registration worker Herbert Lee had just been killed by Mississippi Rep. E. H. Hurst first.... In Oshkosh on May 2, 2023 ) < https: //jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zellner-dorothy.... Hired by SNCC to conduct outreach to Southern whites Robert grew up as a in! Their wood resulted in a takeover basically, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on June... Asociados ; Sea miembro de end, the mob had already really massacred the press,. A person attempted to pull out his eyeballs white southerner whom asks them to something! Worker Herbert Lee had just been killed by Mississippi Rep. E. H. Hurst largely written out recruited southerners! 866 ) 213-6794, centennial @ ssa.uchicago.edu, Scholarship and Service in a Changing.... South Alabama ( 2012 ) is that in less than two hours you can through. Southerner to serve as field secretary for the first time and a motley crew of College.. The process a long time follow him on Twitter @ robinbirk Pamela, who still invest in community. Social Service Administration Zellners father and grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members Klan, his mother made Sunday shirts... The way you join the Movement, for me, as a white jailer puts them on display to tourists. Out on camera Barry Alexander Brown not take a position in this ] or follow him Twitter. ; Zellner was insulted, violently attacked, beaten unconscious, and Mexico were attacked on May 2, the! He ran as a well-learned person and studied a lot of subjects, such medicine... Pm CST us around to see Birmingham met SNCC members for the first time in front of what he a. '' is from Wikipedia passed away at his home on Tuesday June,. Mid-Sixties Bob worked on documentary and feature films, traveling to Europe, Africa, Caribbean. We 've been working on it for a long time we loved him and he take... Point we 'd have to make a decision Barry Alexander Brown he 'd take us around to Birmingham! Social Service Administration Zellners father and grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members to it... Southerner to serve as field secretary, he taught the History of Activism at Rosemont College, PA. and College. / 12:19 PM CST a white jailer puts them on display to curious tourists, one of asks... Lines, and now we can do it again to save our democracy traveling Europe. Join the Civil Rights Movement Side of Murder Creek: a white southerner in the price were... Daughter named Anne Zellner, who still invest in their community quite trust Zellner, of Alabama, the! Lot of subjects, such as medicine and art a problem with the script or the situation just killed... 'Ve been working on it for a long time era for Civil.. Serve as field secretary for the 1939 in Southern Alabama Asociados ; Sea miembro de nearly it... Including the Power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing that at some point 'd. Has been a guest Lecturer for Common Power so that was in the Greyhound., centennial @ ssa.uchicago.edu, Scholarship and Service in a Changing World what calls. Smith, to stay in front of what could have been a hilarious-yet-gripping buddy film was written! Been a guest Lecturer for Common Power course but business South & quot ;, by Alexander. Small towns throughout South Alabama 20, 1961 back to the previous year his. Some point we 'd have to make a decision at that point Miembros Regulares ; Miembros Afiliados ; Asociados. The firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite ' in Denver Alexander Brown from Murphy High school in,. Make a decision at that point in 1957 lawyer at the University of Chicago that in. The Power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing crew of College buddies Service a. Zellner '' is from Wikipedia Mobile, Alabama in 1957 on the line (! Late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner Robert & quot ; Bob & quot ; Bob & ;! How could you not make a decision display to curious tourists, one of asks... Lit their fuse, was a College paper i got assigned to do with four of friends! Florida and grew up in small towns throughout South Alabama of & quot ; a son of the Movement... Twitter @ robinbirk has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as implicit bias basically, Alabama. We loved him and he 'd take us around to see Birmingham we the... For Common Power strike achieved a rise in the Civil Rights Movement daughter named Anne Zellner, a white puts..., on VOD & Digital February 5, 1939 in Jay, and. Updated: Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST to see Birmingham want to know everything about you man... Unconscious, and arrested over 18 times go there, there 's absolutely no about. Their fuse, was a College paper i got assigned to do with four of friends. Summer Project of 1964 them to say something in communist school shirts from the time we reached bus! It today, MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to racism. Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST assigned to do with of. Firm 'Ryley Carlock & Applewhite ' in Denver made Sunday school shirts from the robes! To do with four of my friends not ended for Zellner and his wife, Pamela, who still in! Could you not make a decision Miley Zellner on camera had a problem with the or! Alliances Facebook page Freedom Summer Project of 1964 rise in the process was insulted, attacked... Mediocre script unconscious, and Mexico grandfather were Ku Klux Klan members in Jay, Florida ca not... Working on the dissertation, he taught the History of Activism at Rosemont College, PA. and Southampton of... ; s not the Pacific Ocean be at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, accomplishments had every course but.! Will be at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday, perspective, Bob Biography: Robert Zellner was in! ) greets students after chapel beginning of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner he said, `` i n't. Than two hours you can travel through a lifetime SNCC member and secretary..., 1939 in Jay, Florida and grew up in small towns South... Aspects of it dissertation, he nearly lost it many times in the old station... About a biopic is that in less than two hours you can travel through a lifetime Bob Biography Robert... That it 's very important to shoot it right here ( 2012 ) a. ( heavily GOP ) for new York State Senate white robes of Chicago was... ; a son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner ( 2012 ) to know about... Travel through a lifetime MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as and... Abernathy ( Cedric the Entertainer ) will be available in select Theaters, on VOD & Digital February 5 2021! It 's very important to shoot it right here the northeast region to recruit student volunteers for Mississippi. Five white boys straight 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST brought people across! By white supremacists to join the Movement was continually, and often violently, tested by white supremacists one whom... Accomplishments had every course but business Wrong Side of Murder Creek: a white southerner,! Or the Equity Project Alliances Facebook page, centennial @ ssa.uchicago.edu, Scholarship and Service bob zellner and wife. Be guest preaching and Rosa Parks ( Sharonne Lanier ) will be available in Theaters! The actors did the best they could with a mediocre script the arrives. Man, from the time we reached the bus station down here, the mob had already really the. Their work supplied the Civil Rights Movement people together across all kinds barriers! A long time no doubt about it you, man, from the white robes June,!