Robert and Kathleen married soon after her first semester ended. They resulted in a takeover basically, of our government. The documentary is airing periodically on PBS through 2010. He explained everything about the supply and demand balance issue to Robert. 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. A 1957 graduation speaker at Murphy High School in Mobile, he received a BA from Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama in 1961 with highest honors in Sociology and Psychology. Born in Alabama on 5 April 1939, John Robert Zellner was the second of James Abraham Zellner and Ruby Hardy Zellners five sons. During Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 he traveled with Rita Schwerner while taking part in SNCC's and CORE's investigation of the disappearance of her husband Mickey, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. Potomac Books, 2014. 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. 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. I mean, it is the devil you know? Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. Son of the South tells how Zellner chose to work for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960s. They work all over the country but right now, primarily in seven states in the. While not quite holding a Black card, Brown was the editor on BlacKkKlansman and has collaborated with Lee for decades, going back to School Daze and Do the Right Thing.. The moral high ground was that we were not going to fight back. (2012). We loved him and he'd take us around to see Birmingham. 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. Later, Robert began operating as an independent speculator and eventually became the CEO of 'CitiCorp Futures Inc.' and 'CitiCorp Options.' 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). The beautiful thing about a biopic is that in less than two hours you can travel through a lifetime. Updated: Jan 11, 2021 / 12:19 PM CST. (1964). Zellner is very much still with us, and was present for a recent screening of the film in Montgomery, as he was 60 years to the day earlier. Those were people that you had to take a tremendous risk to follow them. Instead, he chose to be an academic. He handed me the briefcase and he said, "I'll be leaving now." Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund to organize an anti-racism project for black . And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." In the fall of 1963, Zellner moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts with her then husband, Bob Zellner, to run the Northeast Regional Office of SNCC. Left largely unexplored is McDew, Black and Jewish from Ohio and chairman of the. That brought back a lot of emotion to me. Template:TOCnestleft Or was he die hard to the day he died about his stances? We did it 50 years ago. Talk about that real life situation. Zellner also was arrested during a peaceful protest at the state capital in Raleigh. After witnessing a white activist brutally beaten by police, Zeller decided to join the movement "to get my own freedom," he says. It was at these meetings that Zellner met SNCC members for the first time. It's amazing how they can reconcile those things. By Bob Zellner with Constance Curry. 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. During this election, a fellow Democrat, Chuck Schumer from Brooklyn, was running for the US Senate. 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. If we had shown arms and openly been prepared to fight with arms, we would have been wiped out. Zellners lectures are filled with death-defying and often humorous accounts from these critical moments in history. Since 2014, he also tours twice a year with Project Pilgrimage as a Traveling Historian. He said that little land that he left me doesn't mean anything. And Tuskegee was a great place to shoot. 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. The script called for him to needle Zellner about being white and regard him with suspicion until Zellner proved himself, something the real McDew didnt agree to because it just wasnt true, both Brown and the real Zellner told me. Movies. Not exactly, if you consider that neither are typical white Alabamans. Bob became a staff member of SNCC on September 11, 1961, as a field secretary to do campus traveling. In the early 1990s, studying at Tulane University for a Ph.D. in History, Zellner wrote a dissertation on the southern civil rights movement. [Revolution in the Air Max Elbaum page 200], Deep South Education and Research Associates, Building Revolution in the South: The Southern Conference Educational Fund and the New Communist Movement, 1968-1981 A Senior Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the Department of History In Candidacy for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in History, https://keywiki.org/index.php?title=Bob_Zellner&oldid=512831, GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later. And Daddy said, he even put me back in the will. (R to L) James Foreman, Dottie Zellner, Julian Bond, Mike Sayer, and Bob Zellner. During the protests in McComb, a person attempted to pull out his eyeballs. I just didn't want to believe that that's why, that they had a problem with the script or the situation. While in Russia, [] I thought I'd be able to go into graduate school, maybe be a minister or something and have a more normal life, but it was not a normal time. It was a hellish scene. Name: Zellner, Bob (1939-) Historical Note: John Robert Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida and grew up in small towns throughout south Alabama. He is the former director of the 'Chicago Mercantile Exchange.'. Scoop a tad of hair pomade, run your palms with it and apply the product to your locks. Providing historical perspective, Bob has been a Guest Lecturer for Common Power. Zellner was beaten, almost hung, and jailed as a result in McComb, Mississippi. Bob Zellner's career as a civil rights activist, beginning in 1955 as a Murphy High School student, spans nearly seven decades. (2008) edited by Constance Curry and forward by Julian Bond. And now we have to say, "Well, unfortunately we weren't able to shoot there. After spending the following summer at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, Zellner was hired by SNCC to recruit white students for the movement, a position sponsored by a grant from the Southern Conference Education Fund. Robert took up the fellowship at the 'University of Florida.' Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. The first white Southerner to serve as a Field Secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he worked with historical figures including John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and Anne Braden. C'est son histoire, celle d'un jeune Blanc qui se bat pour les droits des Noirs dans l'Amrique raciste des annes 1960, que le film retrace. A native Southerner born in a former Klan family, Bob Zellner dedicated his life to the fight for racial equality in the Civil Rights Movement nearly sixty years ago. Rencontre avec un homme de convictions. Civil Rights activist Bob Zellner to share his fight with Pensacola. 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. Photo by Julia Cheng. 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. He also Investigated the murders of three civil rights workers with Rita Schwerner. Jealous, Ann Todd, and Caroline T. Haskell. During 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, Zellner coordinated volunteers and the Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi. 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. Bob Zellner was white. Well, the way I first met Barry Alexander Brown is in New York City, when we were both working on different kinds of films and movies. His long list of academic accomplishments had every course but business. Disowned by his family, his father became a minister and implemented his teachings into his own family, taking a major trip from being a southern racist to being a human being, Zellner described. Help JWA continue to lift up Jewish womens stories, this month and every month, by. Fee Range $20,001 - $30,000 *. It was very difficult to gain their trust, because I remember when James Forman finally made it to the SNCC office. The best result we found for your search is Bob R Zellner age 80+ in Southampton, NY in the Southampton neighborhood. Robert is married to Kathleen Zellner, a well-known attorney known for representing murder convicts Steven Avery and Larry Eyler. Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Indianapolis (2019). In 1963, he helped integrate the library and lunch counters in the segregated mill town of Danville, Virginia, the last capitol of the Confederacy. They also help organize volunteers to visit swing states during the election to register voters. But the post-traumatic stress is stressful for me and also for my partner, my . I didn't know the extent to which I would and the lifelong involvement, but I knew that I was destined to do that. It's really virulent here in the South, and it's easy to revert to that. Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . 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. Thats because the Jewish half of what could have been a hilarious-yet-gripping buddy film was largely written out. How could you not make a decision at that point? It tells the often turbulent story of . With Bob Zellner, Pattie Campo, Rob Stephens, Kevin A. Smith, Nancy Brown and Derick Smith in Petersburg, Virginia. Request Speaker. More than once, Zellner was beaten into unconsciousness. Well, my grandfather, he never changed his stance about supporting the Ku Klux Klan. Over 50 years later, Mr. Zellner and his wife Dottie (who met and married working for SNCC) are still activists/organizers working with the North Carolina Forward Together Moral Movement and 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 . Alas, thats the line left out of the movie, with McDews character cut out at that point. I liked him because he was the perfect good ole white boy, a teetotal white country boy, with the accent and the background of the real rural South. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. "SNCC was our life. This movie reminds me of the afterschool specials (morality movies) that latchkey kids used to watch back in the 80s. By Julia Cheng. Talk to me a little bit about the riot and, we're just blocks away from where that happened. 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. 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Bob Zellner. In 1962, Zellner organized workshops on nonviolence for students at Talladega College in Alabama, preparing students for lunch counter sit-ins and marches. Just because a movie has Spike Lees name attached to it, doesnt mean its gonna be revolutionary. how much is bob tiffin worth; did bob zellner marry joanne. 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 . They were the people that deserved to be followed. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: a White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. 2. 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. Bob Zellner graduated from Murphy High School (Alabama)|Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama in 1957. In the way too long Freedom Rider scene, not only does the audience witness Black women getting stomped in the street and punched in the face by white men, they get pulverized by white women using purses with bricks inside them as weapons. Youre going to love SNCC, she told him. 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. Dorothy Zellner reflects on her experience as one of the early organizers in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 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. 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