Bob Zellner, civil rights activist, speaks to Wingate students

By  Fabio  Azeredo Staff writer

How did a white man from Alabama who had a father and a grandfather in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) become a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement?  Once a close friend of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, Bob Zellner was arrested 19 times and charged with 40 crimes in effort to support equality for all.  Zellner hosted a Lyceum at Wingate’s Austin Auditorium at on November 12, in which he explained a little bit about his life and his engagement in the Freedom Movement.

Zellner said he was lucky that his father, a Methodist Minister, decided to leave the KKK soon before he was born. According to Zellner, his father could not find an explanation in the Bible about why black people deserve such hate, which was the motive for him leaving the Klan. Unfortunately, his father leaving the Klan resulted in a ban from his own family; however, it allowed Zellner to grow up without learning to feed hate for black people.

Zellner’s first experience with the movement was when he studied sociology at Huntingdon College. Zellner and his four other colleagues did a research paper on “racial issues” and decided to interview Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.  The students received multiple warnings from their teach and from Dr. King informing them that doing these interviews could potentially lead to jail time for the four students, but this didn’t stop them.

Zellner said he and his friends arrived at the court building in Montgomery to interview them. Martin Luther King showed up with a smile on his face and said, “Guys the cops have surrounded the building and you will be arrested.”  Zellner said he was unsure why Martin Luther King seemed so happy, but that was one of the memories that he still cherishes the most today.

Zellner explained that Martin Luther King went to the front door to try to distract the cops while he and his friends tried to escape from the back door.  Then Rosa Parks touched his right elbow and said, “Bob when you see something wrong you have to do something about it.”  Zellner said he never washed that elbow since.  The crowd broke out in laughter.

After that first arrest and experience with Dr. King and Rosa Parks, Zellner decided to “do something” and engage himself in several non-violent protests.  Zellner was arrested several times and was also beat several times in his attempt to protest.  The whole crowd laughed when Zellner said, “I thought if I would have died that day then that would have been the shortest Civil Rights career ever!”

Zellner said that at first it was hard not to respond with violence to the police and to the violent white mob; especially because he was a martial arts instructor and had been taught how to defend himself from a young age.  However, as Zellner described with tears in his eyes that, “Martin Luther King was a short guy with immense courage. He taught me the non-violent action… He was my mentor and is my hero.”

By the end of the lyceum, Zellner compared the context of his experience with  today’s world and said that there are many things that we still need to fight for.  He talked about the inequality in the country and said that the biggest issue in America is that the injustice has reached not only a social but an economic sphere.

One of the most interesting parts of the lyceum was when a student asked Zellner “How can college students impact the world?”  Zellner said, “You tell me how you can impact the world.  Now ‘days you guys have so many technologies. Had those technologies existed back in my day, we would have made a revolution!”

Zellner said the injustices are still occurring today as much as they occurred back then and that we should be aware of the facts so that we can take direct actions.  Zellner’s lyceum ended with an intriguing question, “What are you willing to lose your life for?”

Zellner’s words provoked many laughs and emotional reactions from the crowd of young students.  A huge line formed in the exit for people to talk or take a picture with Mr. Zellner.  At the same time, the snow fell to decorate the night full of thoughts and memories from this true hero of the Civil Rights Movement.

Edited by:

Chandler Murphy