Zellner was SNCCs first white field secretary. He said, "I'm not coming back. Bob Zellner, an Alabama-born and raised son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, was a student when the Freedom Riders came through his college town in Alabama in 1960. 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. ", 2008 The University of Chicago Well, Barry showed his genius as a script writer and an editor and a filmmaker. 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. If he is still at it today, he nearly lost it many times in the process. Carol Ann, the white girlfriend, is virtuous, saving herself for marriage, and Joanne, the light-skinned Black woman who not only speaks five languages, is a professor and lived in Paris, visits Zellners room in the middle of the night with a Mai Tai and jumps into bed with a man whose motto is, Ill try anything three times. It seems as if these characters were just thrown in to break up the narrative with a love story, which doesnt work. You go there, there's literally nothing there. 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. In 2005, Bob Zellner was a featured Civil Rights Luminary in the award winning documentary "Come Walk in My Shoes". Two of those passengers, Catherine Burks-Brooks and Bernard Lafayette, along with later Freedom Rider Earnest Rip Patton, were aboard a replica bus arriving at the exact moment 10:23 a.m. that they had 60 years earlier. I was privileged to meet Bob Zellner at the Virginia Festival of the Book in March of 2010. The examples of Mrs. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer. 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]. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. 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 . GROW organized poor whites in the rural Deep South, many of whom were well accustomed to the Ku Klux Klan in their communities. Template:TOCnestleft For several months Zellner, McDew, and Moses ran a freedom school, Nonviolent High of Pike County, for the students who dropped out of Burglund High to protest Traviss expulsion, though the school closed when the three activists were convicted of disturbing the peace and contributing to the delinquency of minors. I was very lucky, being a student of sociology and psychology, that it was Rosa Parks who challenged me and said, "You can't study this forever, and something's going to happen in front of you someday and you're going to have to decide which side are you really you? After that, there was not a lot of question with the early SNCC people about my commitment, but I also realized that white privilege, would lead me go back to being white at any time that I wanted to, had I chose to do so, but I made a commitment that I wouldn't, so I tried to live up to that. Those were people that you had to take a tremendous risk to follow them. Zellner is partnered with his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of what he calls a new era for civil rights. He was expelled as a white from SNCC in 1967 following leader Stokely Carmichaels movement of the organization in the direction of Black Nationalism. Select this result to view Linda R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. Right. Hence, Robert began searching for a new research fellowship program. did bob zellner marry joanne. I said, "When are you coming back?" He received his PhD at the age of 24 years. Obviously, those are still fresh wounds. He brings to life heartbreaks as well as victories of the Civil Rights Era in a way that empowers and instructs the modern-day movement. 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. He invited me back to campus. As a result, those qualities were ascribed to another character and McDews role significantly diminished. Here's the briefcase." 969 E. 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637 It's Zellner who's "The Son of the South" a white preacher's kid from Alabama and the grandson of a Klansman. He grew up in rural Alabama, the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members and ministers. In 1967 when SNCC became all Black, Bob and Dottie Zellner designed and organized a white organizing push in the deep South called Grass Roots Organizing Work (GROW). 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. Dorothy Zellner reflects on her experience as one of the early organizers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Trying to shift the destructive mentality that locked whites into racism instead . 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. A more interesting aspect of Zellners story to explore is why do white people have to dominate other cultures and what does it really take for a white man to disrupt a system that nourishes him? That may lead to a TV series, Zellner said. At one point, the ministers here that had worked with my father and Dr. King and Joe Lowery, they said, "Your Daddy's about to die and you need to go reconcile with him. 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. Its Zellner whos The Son of the South a white preachers kid from Alabama and the grandson of a Klansman. And he said, "Oh good. 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. Select this result to view Bob R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. This group, the torch that lit their fuse, was a college paper I got assigned to do with four of my friends. If he is still at it today, he nearly lost it many times in the process. Tell me about what your feelings were during that situation? 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. Bob Zellner. It was our existenceIt was like being cast into outer darkness, because SNCC was our family in a very strong sense." The following information is provided for citations. Talk about that real life situation. It was very difficult to gain their trust, because I remember when James Forman finally made it to the SNCC office. Jeanine is a Writer, Actor, member SAG/AFTRA, AEA, Podcast host,. Young white and free with the world ahead of him, just as soon as he finishes his final group paper on race relations. 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. 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." The Annual Faith and Politics Congressional Pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama and other sites of the freedom struggle was led by the Honorable John Lewis and filmed by Robin Smith, award winning documentary director and producer and president and founder of VideoAction. Instead, he chose to be an academic. Up until 1967, Zellner worked with Ms. Ella Baker, Rev. 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. SNCC was our life. 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. Robin Washington, an acclaimed veteran journalist based in Minnesota, is the Forwards Editor-at-Large. Scoop a tad of hair pomade, run your palms with it and apply the product to your locks. He was untouched by the civilized world.. We knew that at some point we'd have to make a decision. She was the wife of the late Elmer C. Palmer and the late Lester C. Zellner. Somebody hands you a briefcase and that's the extent of SNCC. Zellner eventually joined SCEF and help lay the groundwork for GROW there. In 1962, Zellner organized workshops on nonviolence for students at Talladega College in Alabama, preparing students for lunch counter sit-ins and marches. When his father broke away from the Klan, his mother made Sunday school shirts from the white robes. After that, Robert ventured into the field of share market and business, which was an objectionable profession in his family in the past. (2016- present). Left largely unexplored is McDew, Black and Jewish from Ohio and chairman of the. Sometimes when we retell the stories, we actually soft pedal the amount of violence that there was. They had busted all the cameras. Honours, decorations, awards and distinctions, https://wikitia.com/index.php?title=Bob_Zellner&oldid=90263. 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. 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. During the visit McComb students organized a march to protest the murder of Herbert Lee and the expulsion of Brenda Travis and Ike Lewis from Burglund High School. Louise Palmer Zellner, 93, formerly of Emmaus Ave., Allentown, and Hellertown, passed away Thursday, February 23, 2023. 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. Especially when you couldn't have thousands of people demonstrating, carrying arms. They were the people that deserved to be followed. Zellners a senior at a Methodist college. At twenty-two, he rode from Atlanta, Georgia to Albany Georgia on the Central Georgia Railroad on December 10, 1961. 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. His first campaign through SCEF was the GROW project, Grass Roots Organizing Work, in rural towns such as Laurel, Mississippi. One is Jewish and from the North, the other Southern and the son of a Methodist minister. There's absolutely no doubt about it. TV Shows. Like, how did he meet his wife, activist Dottie Zellner (also white and worked for SNCC)? Bob Zellner is the hero of "A Son of the South", by Barry Alexander Brown. The street was covered with blood and broken glass. There was a time in American cinema where the portrayal of Black bodies being brutalized by white racists was shocking. In a voiceover, Zellner muses, A lot of white folks have a short fuse when it comes to civil rights. 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. Neil High School in Brewton, Alabama and graduated from Murphy . 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. Our site uses cookies. Abernathy (Cedric the Entertainer) will be guest preaching and Rosa Parks (Sharonne Lanier) will be in attendance. 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