- Collection:
- Southern Journey Oral History Collection
- Title:
- Louisiana - New Orleans: Bob Zellner Interviewee
- Contributor to Resource:
- Dent, Thomas C.
- Date of Original:
- 1994-05-10
- Subject:
- African Americans
Assassins
Civil rights
Education
Police brutality
Prisons
Punishment
Torture
Race relations
Universities and colleges
Suffrage - Location:
- United States, Alabama, Escambia County, East Brewton, 31.09323, -87.06275
United States, Alabama, Jefferson County, Birmingham, 33.52066, -86.80249
United States, Alabama, McCollum, 33.81789, -87.32528
United States, Alabama, Mobile County, Mobile, 30.69436, -88.04305
United States, Alabama, Montgomery County, Montgomery, 32.36681, -86.29997
United States, Alabama, Talladega County, Talladega, 33.43594, -86.1058
United States, Louisiana, East Baton Rouge Parish, Baton Rouge, 30.44332, -91.18747
United States, Mississippi, Lauderdale County, Meridian, 32.36431, -88.70366
United States, Mississippi, Leflore County, Greenwood, 33.51623, -90.17953
United States, Mississippi, Madison County, Canton, 32.61264, -90.03675 - Medium:
- sound recordings
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Tom Dent interviews Bob Zellner in New Orleans, Louisiana. They discus late 1960s movements, such as FPD, election efforts, Liberty House, The Federation of Southern Co-opts, The Grow Project, and other small projects and personal projects. Most are centered in Canton and Meridian Mississippi as well as a Alabama. Zellner mentions a memoir he was working on at the time of the interview. The early chapters deal with his childhood and life leading up to the founding of SNICC. Zellner states that he grew up in East Brewton, South Alabama. His father was a Methodist minister and his mother was a school teacher. His father was originally from Birmingham, Alabama where he and Zellner's grandfather were active KKK members. His mother's father was a rural Methodist minter who traveled and preached on horseback though south Alabama and northern Florida. Both sides of the family were active in the higher ranks of Methodist leadership and Zellner was very active in the church growing up. He graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile in 1957. He states this was where he had his first racial experiences which brought him into confrontation with the authority figures of his town. He recalls feeling very different from the students around him. This was shortly after Brown V Board of education. Zellner recalls telling his friends he thought integration was a good thing. His friends told him to keep quiet otherwise people would hurt him. When Zellner dug deeper he discovered that there were few that cared enough to actually enact violence but there was a pervasive feeling of fear. Zellner also discusses his father who had been an active KKK member but broke with the church and became an advocate for integration. From this Zellner learned there was no middle ground on race for Whites. Afterwards, he went to Huntingdon College in Montgomery Alabama just as Civil Rights movements started in the late 1950s. Zellner recalls making money during collage by working with the church. The minister of his church was an associate of MLK's and a member of a secrete group Zellner's father founded for pro-integration ministers. Zellner recalls he got involved when he was assigned to write a paper during his senior year in 1960 on the "racial problem" and possible solutions for a race relations class. He went to integrated meetings and organized a group of students to meet Reverend Abenaki and MLK. The group began attending meetings, sit-ins, becoming more and more vocal and active in connection with Reverend Abenaki and MLK. Eventually they were asked to resign from the college. Zellner refused.
- Metadata URL:
- https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:54084
- Contributing Institution:
- Amistad Research Center
- Rights:
-
