Zellner at immediate right behind activist and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee colleague Julian Bond. (Richard Avedon Foundation)
An Alabama native and civil rights activist who rejected his family's links to the Klan and helped organize the freedom rides of 1961 will speak Feb. 10 at Eureka College, on the 1960s civil rights movement.
Bob Zellner is the author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. Spike Lee is producing an independent film, “Son of the South,” based on the book.
Zellner's talk will be at 7:30 at the college's Cerf Center. Tickets are $5. For reservations, go to www.eureka.edu/events or call 309-467-6420 or 309-467-6420.
Zellner's father and grandfather were active in the Ku Klux Klan, but the young Zellner's childhood took a unique turn when his father James traveled to Europe to help support the Jewish underground during the Nazi occupation. Isolated from English speakers for months, his father met a group of black gospel singers who were also supporting the Jewish underground.
As they worked together as equals throughout a Russian winter, James came to reject the racist beliefs he was raised with, and when he returned, he split from the KKK.
By high school, Bob began forming his own opinions on race and equality following the expulsion of Autherine Lucy (a black student) from the University of Alabama.
By college, Zellner had become the first white field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a group involved in registering voters and working for change and equality.
As a result of his efforts with SNCC, Zellner was arrested 18 times and charged with offenses that included criminal anarchy and inciting the black population to acts of war and violence.
He later continued organizing anti-racism efforts with the Southern Conference Educational Fund.
Zellner has a doctorate in history from Tulane University. He wrote his dissertation on the Southern civil rights movement.