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. I said, "When are you coming back?" He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. The KKK arrives at the University to set those five white boys straight. Brian Dennehy playing my grandfather. In 1963, he helped integrate the library and lunch counters in the segregated mill town of Danville, Virginia, the last capitol of the Confederacy. Jeanine is a Writer, Actor, member SAG/AFTRA, AEA, Podcast host, Producer, CEO VisAbleBlackWoman Productions, Certified Health Coach and Conscious Dance facilitator. They have also lived in New Orleans, LA and New York, NY. 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. Hes got the steady girlfriend and a motley crew of college buddies. Well, it's very important to shoot it right here. They'd be entering into the present day, and letting bygones be bygones, and entering the new. There was a time in American cinema where the portrayal of Black bodies being brutalized by white racists was shocking. Zellner recruited white southerners to join the Civil Rights Movement through his role as a campus traveler. Where: Gateway Church of Christ, 445 Creighton Road, Pensacola. That was incredible. He's incredible. The series chronicled the life of Kathleen's client, murder convict Steven Avery. Bob Zellner was one of their important contacts who would greatly influence this strategy. He handed me the briefcase and he said, "I'll be leaving now." More:Pensacola business leaders band together to fight systemic injustice, More:Elizabeth Eckford in Pensacola to share how she braved hate as one of the Little Rock Nine. 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. Listening to Bob Zellner speaking about organizing working class and poor white people. Arrested 18 times in seven states, he organized in McComb, MS., Albany, GA, Danville, VA, Talladega, Montgomery, and Birmingham, AL, as well as New Haven, CT, and Boston. 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. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a "GROW" (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. Because President West, Cam West, had taken a very courageous stand when the book came out in 2008. From 1957 to the spring of 1961, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, graduating with a BA in Sociology and Psychology. Photo by Julia Cheng. A man escaped slavery by mailing himself to freedom. 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. What do you hope is to take away from this, when people see this movie? As the grandson of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member and son of an . Select this result to view Bob R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. Thats part of what impressed McDew, then SNCCs chairman, to hire him. A veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, she served as a recruiter for the Freedom Summer project and was co-editor of Student Voice, the student newsletter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. So again, does a white Alabaman directing the story of another white Alabaman smack of saviorism? I hope it does, and if so, I have a suggestion: Bring back the character of McDew to make a buddy show, about a Black Jewish guy from the North teamed up with the white grandson of a Klansman, working for SNCC in the most dangerous days of the movement. Son of the South does not tell a nuanced story. That was my commission in the Civil Rights Movement. I guess I was very lucky, because early on, our first staff meeting actually in SNCC, was in McComb, Mississippi. Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. 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. How scary was that? Zellner was charged with everything from criminal anarchy in Baton Rouge to "inciting the black population to acts of war and violence against the white population" in Danville, VA. From 1963 to 1965, Zellner studied race relations in the Graduate School of Sociology at Brandeis University. See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs. During the 2016 election season, Bob and his wife Pamela volunteered for the Doug Jones for Senate Campaign in lower Alabama. Their work supplied the Civil Rights Movement with its most significant assets, including the power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing. But it means a lot that he put me back in the will. Zellner was perfect. You can't not take a position in this. School of Social Service Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. If we had wanted to create him, we couldnt have done a better job, McDew wrote in his autobiography, Tell The Story, released posthumously last year. 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. 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. Select this result to view Linda R Zellner's phone number, address, and more. We didn't know they were racist or what that meant. 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 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 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. 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. 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. "You have to eventually take a stand, and you have to take action." After graduating from college in 1961, Zellner joined . 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. SNCC was our life. A paper on race relations. It reminds me of the time Chuck McDew and I visited my brother and his wife in a small town near Knoxville, Tenn. McDew, an African American born in Massillon, Ohio, was fascinated by the jobs being held . He said, "I'm not coming back. But they would be mistaken. piggly wiggly moss point . Students from McCombs Burgland High School had staged a march in response to the the expulsion of Brenda Travis who had been arrested for sitting-in at the Trailways bus station. I'm going back to school." 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. Thats because the Jewish half of what could have been a hilarious-yet-gripping buddy film was largely written out. They also help organize volunteers to visit swing states during the election to register voters. Bob Zellner, a trailblazing civil rights activist, is the grandson of an Alabama Klansman. 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. Once the opening credits finally end, the film flashes back to the previous year. Zellner attended W.S. 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. Bob Zellner was a member of the October League.[1]. Like, how did he meet his wife, activist Dottie Zellner (also white and worked for SNCC)? Jewish Women's Archive. There were two wings in SNCC. Zellner also was arrested during a peaceful protest at the state capital in Raleigh. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. To register go to Eventbrite or the Equity Project Alliances Facebook page. 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 continues to speak publicly on civil rights and in 2008 published a memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. He continues his activism and in April 2013 was arrested for protesting North Carolinas voter ID law. Bob Zellner was white. We are providing this brief biography for Civil Rights activist Bob Zellner to share his fight with Pensacola. It's the first time I think anybody has made a film about a young civil rights organizer, especially a white Southern organizer, deciding to go against all of our raising in the South and to take part in one of the most historical movements of right time. Louise Palmer Zellner, 93, formerly of Emmaus Ave., Allentown, and Hellertown, passed away Thursday, February 23, 2023. 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. The men attempted to drag Zellner away from the other protesters, but Zellner clung to a railing until police finally pulled him off to arrest him, along with the other SNCC workers and 119 students. Edited by Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell. 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. Bob Zellner, Winter 1963-1964, Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 18, dektol.wordpress.com. Kathleen graduated from the Northern Illinois University College of Law in 1981 and then worked for a 2nd District Appellate Court justice and several large law firms. Jim Forman arrived a week later with a tape recorder. But did you feel like it was hard gaining SNCCs trust? 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? I was egging the people on to hang me! They brag on all the movies that have been shot there, but not Spike Lee and Barry Alexander Brown shooting Son of the South. She handled fundraising and helped screen volunteers for Freedom Summer. 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. Fv 27, 2023 . Kathleen had met Robert for the first time in Missouri. Lucas Till stars in "Son of the South," playing Bob Zellner, a fledgling civil rights activist from Alabama. He became who he is today, someone that has always been out on the very front line taking literally the physical and mental and emotional trauma of leading society out of a segregated mindset, MacQueen said. Born January 28, 1962, in Green Bay, he is the son of Mary Ellen (Day) Zellner and the late Bob Zellner. A lot of people see it as a moderate or a even cowardly stance, but it took a tremendous amount of courage to be non-violent in those situations. 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.. Grow out the hair until it reaches your shoulders. 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. At least the father and son, a reconciliation. During the summer of 1964 he also worked in Neshoba County with Rita Schwerner, investigating the murder of her husband, Michael Schwerner, and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The film does convey the real dangers Zellner experienced, including a near-lynching, as well as his complicated relationship with his Klansman grandfather (Brian Dennehy, in his last major role), who threatens to himself shoot Zellner if he continues his activism, while at the same time making arrangements for a family dinner. The Woodcutters Union Campaign, from 1967 to 1979 mobilized thousands of black and white pulp and timber workers. Bob Zellner. I said, "Well, no, that's the same movement, but they were there earlier." Zellner was SNCCs first white field secretary. 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 Methodist preacher dad arrives for an impromptu family meeting in the middle of the street, right in between the college students and the KKK. "Dorothy Miller Zellner." My father was disowned by his father and his mother and his brothers never spoke to him again in his whole life. Well, that was in the early 80's. He never felt any personal animosity from Stokely or any of the old hands, but [he] did feel it from some of the newer people. When he and his wife Dorothy Dottie Zellner presented the proposal for a GROW (Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. Until 1962 Zellner was SNCCs only white field secretary. Abernathy (Cedric the Entertainer) will be guest preaching and Rosa Parks (Sharonne Lanier) will be in attendance. He put a big Wollensak recorder up on the desk and he said, "Look, brother, I want to know your life from the time you were born to right now, and it better hold out." Tell me about what your feelings were during that situation? by JWA StaffOur work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. 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