Shelter Island Library conversation with an agent of change Robert Zellner, subject of the movie ‘Son of the South.’ (Credit: Courtesy photo)
Zooming into an interview with Robert Zellner last Friday night was like opening a window into a distant past.
Yet Pulitzer-prize winning historian Diane McWhorter’s discussion with the civil rights activist, part of the Shelter Island Library’s Friday Night Dialogue series, was often startlingly relevant to issues of today.
Mr. Zellner’s story of the throes of civil rights turmoil of the 1960s was detailed in his 2008 autobiography, “The Wrong Side of Murder Creek.” Now, the story has been made into a movie by Spike Lee, “Son of the South,” and released this month.
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Bob Zellner, A Son Of The South 1 Photo
Bob Zellner s book The Wrong Side of Murder Creek.
Staff Writer on Feb 8, 2021
Bob Zellner was raised in Alabama and is the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members. But early in life, he questioned Jim Crow segregation, which was endemic in his community.
As a young man, he joined the civil rights movement, becoming the first white field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. In the course of being beaten, jailed and personally targeted by Alabama’s notorious governor George Wallace, he came to know many of the movement’s icons, including John Lewis, Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer.