Zellners Methodist preacher dad arrives for an impromptu family meeting in the middle of the street, right in between the college students and the KKK. It was a hellish scene. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. They brag on all the movies that have been shot there, but not Spike Lee and Barry Alexander Brown shooting Son of the South. Updated: Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST. John Seigenthaler had been beaten in the head with a pipe and kicked her under a car for dead. 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. One of my brothers has reverted to be a Trump supporter and a Roy Moore supporter, and just as mean as he can possibly be, and he's a deacon of the church. Left largely unexplored is McDew, Black and Jewish from Ohio and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in its earliest, and most dangerous, days, who died in 2018. In the mid-1970s, the couple moved to Canada briefly but later moved back to the US. Bob Zellner, civil rights activist and author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, sent this . 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 . 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." . He received his PhD at the age of 24 years. Time Magazine. 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. Features thousands of biographic and thematic essays on Jewish women around the world. we loved all of that. With Showing Up for Racial Justice organizers in North Carolina. MONTGOMERY, Alabama The funniest line in the true-life story behind the Spike Lee-executive produced Civil Rights movement biopic, Son of the South, is in Yiddish. 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. We knew that at some point we'd have to make a decision. Tell me a little bit about your grandfather. And Tuskegee was a great place to shoot. 3. He invited me back to campus. Senator Jones served Alabama for two years. Contact him at [emailprotected] or follow him on Twitter @robinbirk. But did you feel like it was hard gaining SNCCs trust? Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace. Bob Zellner. . In one of her interviews, Kathleen mentioned that she had binge-watched the 2015 'Netflix' series 'Making a Murderer' with Robert on their home theater and was intrigued. it's okay, but you know M.O. Select this result to view Linda R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. During 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Zellner coordinated volunteers and the Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi. More than once, Zellner was beaten into unconsciousness. A few minutes later, when the songs were done, the old Freedom Rider Bernard Lafayette stepped up to Bob Zellner is a writer, known for Son of the South (2020), Breath of Freedom (2014) and Moyers & Company . How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. Published Feb 4, 2021. It reminded me of Nazi Germany. Scoop a tad of hair pomade, run your palms with it and apply the product to your locks. I had been banned from campus for 40 years, not allowed to come back. Son of the South will be available in select Theaters, On VOD & Digital February 5, 2021. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. 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. 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. 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. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a "GROW" (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. His continued active role in the movementnotably as one of 16 arrested with Rev. Jim Forman arrived a week later with a tape recorder. His story is coming to Pensacola. School of Social Service Administration 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. 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 . Part of it is that Jeff Sessions is alumni of Huntingdon College. After two years on the SNCC staff as a field secretary for campus traveling, Bob enrolled to study Sociology as a MA and Ph.D. candidate, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts between 1963-1965. 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. I think he's wonderful. Theres so much more to Bob Zellners life than this movie reflects. I knew that because my father had already done a tremendous journey of leaving the Ku Klux Klan that I was destined to take a part in this somehow or another. Thats sad and infuriating. And he said, "Oh no, when we're able to, we get back on the bus." Neil High School in Brewton, Alabama and graduated from Murphy . http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/bob-zellner/, Moral Heroes website, www.moralheroes.org. Our site uses cookies. 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). This page was last edited on 31 March 2021, at 08:29. And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." It was painful. 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. . Dorothy "Dottie" Miller Zellner is an American human rights activist, feminist, editor, lecturer, and writer. 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. Zellner witnessed the beatings, leading him to become a full-time Civil Rights worker. Till is known for his work in CBS reboot of "MacGyver" and the movie "X-Men . Just because a movie has Spike Lees name attached to it, doesnt mean its gonna be revolutionary. Jeanine is a Writer, Actor, member SAG/AFTRA, AEA, Podcast host, Producer, CEO VisAbleBlackWoman Productions, Certified Health Coach and Conscious Dance facilitator. Potomac Books, 2014. Menu. jonathan davis wife renee perez; md high school volleyball rankings. Wikitia is not affiliated to Wikimedia Foundation, Honorary Doctor of Laws, St. Joseph College, New York (2002). Providing historical perspective, Bob has been a Guest Lecturer for Common Power. John Robert Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida and grew up in small towns throughout south Alabama. Shortly, Zeller wound up being hired by SNCC to conduct outreach to Southern whites. Julian Bond, now the National NAACP Chairman and Bob organized the National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee. It's about young people and it's especially about the strength and power of women, not only in the Civil Rights Movement, but then our nation in general. Zellner decides he and his friends need to actually go and attend service at the Black church where Rev. In Son of the South, out on February 5, Lucas Till plays real-life civil rights activist Bob Zellner. 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). 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. Prominent Civil Rights Activist, Freedom Rider and Author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. Bob's memoir, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement", with Constance Curry and foreword by Julian Bond, was published by New South Books in the November, 2008. Youre going to love SNCC, she told him. The opening credits reveal a languid montage of beautiful images of the South set to music that reminded me of that TV series with Carrol OConnor (Archie Bunker from All in the Family) from the 80s In the Heat of the Night. In 2005, Bob Zellner was a featured Civil Rights Luminary in the award winning documentary "Come Walk in My Shoes". Winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. His long list of academic accomplishments had every course but business. 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. That made him a special target for the mob that greeted young Black protesters. Fee Range $20,001 - $30,000 *. Son of the South was written, directed, and edited by Barry Alexander Brown, executive producer Spike Lee, distributed by Vertical Entertainment. Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . A senior paper.. I think all five of us students knew which side was correct and which side was right, which side was Christian, which side was American, constitutional and which side was terrorist and unconstitutional. 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. By Julia Cheng. He is the former director of the 'Chicago Mercantile Exchange.'. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. At the Freedom Rides Museum: SNCC field secretary Bob Zellner meets with the Forwards Robin Washington in front of the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. How could you not become a part of the movement when Saint Rosa Parks told you to do so? From a family line of KKK members, Bob Zellner became one of the first white southerners to engage in the early civil rights movement. Voter registration worker Herbert Lee had just been killed by Mississippi Rep. E. H. Hurst. You can't not take a position in this. Instead, he chose to be an academic. And dont worry about the savior bit: My bet is that McDews character will steal the show. The following information is provided for citations. He continues his activism and in April 2013 was arrested for protesting North Carolinas voter ID law. 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. 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. ", 2008 The University of Chicago But I think what it's done, is it's exposed to the racism that was always there. Zellner graduated in 1981 from Northern Illinois University College of Law and clerked for a 2nd District Appellate Court justice, Chicago Magazine said. Doug Tanner, the tour takes hundreds of Senators and Congresswomen and men to Alabama every year to commemorate Bloody Sunday and the passage of the 1965 Voters Rights bill. (2012). A SNCC member and field secretary, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a "GROW" (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. Zellner also participated in SNCCs McComb voter registration campaign and in the Pike County Nonviolent Movement before moving to Leflore County to work with Amzie Moore and the McGhee family on desegregation, voter registration, and the formation of the Leflore County Freedom Democratic Party. 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. Bob Zellner. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. Isn't that ironic? Bob Zellner, Winter 1963-1964, Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 18, dektol.wordpress.com. 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 project for black and white workers in the Deep South called GROW, Grass Roots Organizing Work, also called Get Rid Of Wallace. In 1966 SNCC voted to expel white activists from its organization, and although Zellner and his wife, Dorothy Miller Zellner, who also worked for SNCC, appealed, SNCCs central committee rejected their request for reinstatement. He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. Bob Zellner is known for Son of the South (2020), Breath of Freedom (2014) and Moyers & Company (2012). Today, MacQueen believes racism has evolved from outright racism to subtle racism such as implicit bias. He started working for the 'Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.' They work alongside Common Power, an organization that encourages civic action through community, education and investment in a next-generation of leaders. As a new generation asks, What is my place in this struggle? Zellners work points to new answers. 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. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a " GROW " ( Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. Copyright 2023 The Forward Association, Inc. All rights reserved. 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. average weight of a high school basketball player. 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. Photo by Julia Cheng. 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. 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? 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. If he is still at it today, he nearly lost it many times in the process. The violence that Zellner and his colleagues were subjected to was astounding. I just didn't want to believe that that's why, that they had a problem with the script or the situation. Up until 1967, Zellner worked with Ms. Ella Baker, Rev. 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 . They had busted all the cameras. 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. Son of the South does not tell a nuanced story. In December 1961, Bob took part in Freedom Rides and was subsequently jailed with Martin Luther King Jr. in Albany, Georgia. I was egging the people on to hang me! He said, "I don't know." 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. 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. 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. Tell me a little bit about the importance of shooting right here, where all of this really happened. 2. So you went to Atlanta to SNCC, right? 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. To register go to Eventbrite or the Equity Project Alliances Facebook page. In 1991 he started a Ph.D. program in History at Tulane . 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. 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. 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 As a result, those qualities were ascribed to another character and McDews role significantly diminished. Zellners peers and teacher remind him of the risks of going to a Black church, but Zellner blows everyone off and convinces his four classmates to attend the service with him. We started working on the script, and the first thing, I think the first draft of the script was done in about 1987, so a long time ago. 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.. He was expelled as a white from SNCC in 1967 following leader Stokely Carmichaels movement of the organization in the direction of Black Nationalism. Bob Zellner's career as a civil rights activist, beginning in 1955 as a Murphy High School student, spans nearly seven decades. That's was very hard to see. I'm going back to school." Zellner, Bob Biography: Robert Zellner was born April 5, 1939 in southern Alabama. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search. He got the character right away and he's really good looking, much better than me, but everybody says there's a faint resemblance between the young me and Lucas Till. I would have loved to see Zellners relationship in the later years of SNCC when the movement evolved and Bobby Seale pushed to shift SNCCs strategy and have the white members focusing on educating white folks instead of building a multi-racial movement. How could you not get involved with that? (2008) edited by Constance Curry and forward by Julian Bond. 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. We had to be, at least tactically, non-violent. 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. Also, at the Montgomery screening, both audience members and Zellner himself noted that Son of the South ends abruptly, with the movements battles, and Zellners own, far from resolved. He is a graduate of Denmark High School, Class of 1980. . 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. Yeah. Though threatened with expulsion for his involvement with student protests, Zellner graduated in 1961 with a degree in psychology and sociology. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. We had the moral high ground, but it was also very practical. 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 It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense.. Likewise, as with all based-on-a-true-story movies, facts that didnt quite fit a cinematic narrative are left out or massaged, concerning McDews character in particular. But it means a lot that he put me back in the will. Fill out this simple form to send an email to a friend who might enjoy this page. #cinderella #camilacabello #cinderellamovie Like and subscribe! Down it goes and off you doHate comments will be deleted. Hes got the steady girlfriend and a motley crew of college buddies. As soon as I met Barry, I got his whole story. 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. I said, "Well, no, that's the same movement, but they were there earlier." In 1962, Zellner organized workshops on nonviolence for students at Talladega College in Alabama, preparing students for lunch counter sit-ins and marches. I think Barry's gone way out of his way to involve young people, especially young, talented, famous people among young people. Bob is related to Margaret R Zellner and Linda Ann Miller. Request Speaker. 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. (2003). 1. 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.
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