Bob Zellner was locked up, beat up, and nearly killed for his uncompromising leadership in the movement for civil and human rights and for his unshakable commitment to organizing poor white Southerners as part of that movement. He was SNCC’s first while field secretary, in Mississippi. Bob went on to work with Anne Braden and others to continue organizing the poor to cross the color line in the South through the Southern Conference Education Fund and the GROW (Grassroots Organizing Work) Project. He continues to give everything he has to grassroots fights for justice, including as part of the Moral Mondays movement and the struggle to save rural hospitals.
Bob’s memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, is an invaluable read for anyone struggling with the complex political situation we’re dealing with today, and in particular the relationship between race and class in America. You can find an interview we did with him a little while back, about his 50 years of experience in this work, here.
This seminar took place on Monday, April 18th, 2016. An audio recording is available below:
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