by Bob Zellner
Jeff Kisseloff of Sleepy Hollow, New York, was a skilled doula for this book. Afternoons at his mountain retreat talking about the olden days produced transcripts, which expanded into chapters. Generation on Fire, his oral history of the sixties, includes a chapter incorporating parts of this book.
Harry Belafonte helped over the writing years, subsidizing my ailing economy by hiring me for construction jobs on his New York office and his country lake house. More importantly, Harry reminded me of stories I had forgotten, some of which were actually true.
Actor Joan Rosenfeld of Modern Times Theater and Vinceremos Brigade founder Julie Nickerman nurtured and gave me encouragement.
Michael Ratner, Bill Kunstler, and Margie Ratner provided jobs and encouragement while Dr. Gwendolyn Midlow Hall provided criticism, support, and priceless insight into early movement mentality. Her children were a great inspiration during my first long writing sessions, accomplished at her mountain home in Effort, Pennsylvania.
Rose and Ralph Fishman of Brookline, Massachusetts, are key to much of the flavor in my story. In Boston with Maggie Donovan for work on the Freedom Curriculum, we often visited the Fishmans. Rose, bringing out her pictures of SNCC folks and her diaries, made the sixties pulse and sing again. Images of Margaret and Katie as little kids, Dottie, Maggie and Ed, Rose and Ralph and their little ones, along with Mrs. Hamer. Jim Forman appeared young, vibrant and very much alive.
Danny Lyon, aka in SNCC as “Dandelion,” was one of the coolest cats in our very cool organization and he has stood the test of time. His photographs are the best the movement has to offer and his bravery under fire is legend. He once snuck through the woods to take pictures of teenage girls imprisoned in an abandoned dungeon in the middle of a snake-infested swamp near Albany, Georgia. He had to shush his many fans in the standing room-only stockade when they spotted Danny. They could have alerted the authorities when they screamed, “Dandelion is here! We will all be saved.” After the bad old SNCC days began to fade, to avoid sinking into lethargy and in the interest of keeping his hand in as an ace photographer, Danny went to Haiti to take pictures of the Tonton Macoutes. The man lives dangerously and it is gratifying to see him reach the stratosphere in his field. Thank you, Danny for letting me use your historic pictures in Murder Creek. Danny, you are in good company as I also express deep gratitude to my friend and teacher, Richard Avedon, and to the Richard Avedon Foundation for the use of his gorgeous image of the young SNCC.
Scholars have interviewed me over the years, including Howard Zinn, Clay Carson, Kerry Taylor, John Dittmer, Charles Payne, Judy Richardson, John Hampton, Pat Sullivan, Bruce Nelson, Jerry Thornbery, Taylor Branch, the late David Halberstam, and Dan Carter. Clay, Kerry, and others were kind enough to forward transcripts of interviews for use in my memoir. Halberstam talked me through a way to see the book as a rounded story with a theme, a beginning and an end. I hope I have done justice to the memory of my friend and SNCC chronicler David Halberstam.
Thanks to publisher Daniel H. Fiske of Verdict magazine, the official organ of the National Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals, for excerpting three chapters my book during 2006 and ’07.
John Dittmer, scholar and writer on the freedom movement, read for corrections and additions, actually volunteering to do so. Others checked specific references—Dottie Miller, Maggie Donovan, Joan Browning, Tom and Casey Hayden, Lawrence Guyot, as well as SNCC buddies Chuck McDew and Reggie Robinson. Special kudos to Julian Bond for writing the foreword despite tremendous demands—his teaching schedule and his invaluable leadership of the NAACP.
At NewSouth Books, editor Randall Williams, publisher Suzanne La Rosa, managing editor Brian Seidman, and Lisa Emerson, Lisa Harrison, Mary Katherine Pappas, and Ashley Hockensmith could not have been more encouraging and committed to the book. Attorney Will Campbell of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a longtime NewSouth friend, proofread the manuscript and made helpful suggestions.
This tale has taken so long to write and produce that new helpers have been added along the way like Marla Schwenk. She has kept my schedule and me on track so I can devote more time to finishing “the book.”
Our friends Jeff Weinstein, Lisa Kombrink and Rita White were pressed into service as proof readers; for their selfless work I am eternally grateful. Thanks to our attorney, Kathryn Dalli, who was always there with sage advice. Rose and John Dios have been valuable advisors and, along with Roberta LaRosa, have helped us with endless encouragement, hope and good humor. Beloved friends like Ed Stateman and our neighbor across the street, Jerry Chalem, provided the necessary spiritual sustenance needed to persevere, while Richard Lawless and Bobby Onco have guided Linda and me into the mysteries of the very demanding Shinnecock sweat lodge, where the beautiful Linda Miller-Zellner bore the heat much better than I did, and I am the Southerner!
I could not have completed this book without Linda, who came into this marriage on with her eyes wide open. Even so, she has been astounded at the baggage my past has brought to our Eden. To her immense credit she and her large, very progressive extended family and friends have welcomed me and Margaret and Katie into their lives. My loving and lovely Linda, who I call “Boo” because she was such a happy surprise in my life, is an astute and successful businesswoman with the spirit of a life-long movement person. Needless to say, our business together, Miller+Zellner Associates, is more efficient than mine alone has ever been.
And what to say about my co-writer, Connie Curry, confidante, sister and comrade of fifty years. Authors often claim their tome wouldn’t have existed without their editor. It’s true for me. Many tried pulling these stories out of me—Connie succeeded. I enjoy telling war stories on the rubber chicken circuit—the funny ones, that is, but Connie declared in her calm, no bullshit manner that I was avoiding the painful parts of the story—“now get on with it!” I can’t blame her, gentle soul, for screaming she would never again collaborate with a “movement man” on a book. I try to soothe by pointing with pride to her irreplaceable role. An accomplished and lionized writer in her own right, she’s become a movement Svengali, the Henry Higgins of movement literature, more than Samuel Johnson’s Boswell.
To the thousands of my closest friends and relatives who are left out of this lengthy acknowledgment, please forgive me. The vital roles you have played in my life are intertwined to form the silken thread holding the pearls of this book together. Remember, it has been almost twenty years in the making. More importantly, as Connie and other comrades of the sixties remind me, brain drain is commencing. I thank you all.
Photographs
My father, Reverend James Zellner, top row, third from left, with missionary colleagues somewhere in Europe in the early 1930s; standing next to him is Dr. Bob Jones. (Zellner family collection)
Dad (right foreground, wearing glasses), with Dr. Bob Jones (holding hat) in a Polish crowd during the same trip. (Zellner Family Collection)
“The old Klansman with a stick,” Granddaddy J. O. Zellner, in Birmingham. Date unknown. (Zellner Family Collection)
My parents—James Abraham Zellner and Ruby Rachael Hardy—in their wedding picture, 1935, Fort Deposit, Alabama. (Zellner Family Collection)
The Zellner family in Newton, Alabama, about 1943. Little soldiers, Jim and me, standing with Doug. David in Mom’s arms. On the porch are Uncle Harvey’s oldest daughters, Ruth and Madline. (Zellner Family Collection)
Me on the waterfront in Mobile while living with Uncle Doug and Aunt Peg. (Zellner Family Collection)
The Seven Zs, cabin, before Daddy built the big fireplace and chimney. (Zellner Family Collection)
Nashville SNCC meeting, 1961. Susan Wilbur is second from the left in the second row (Bob Zellner collection; photographer unknown).
My mug shot after being charged with criminal anarchy in Baton Rouge, February 1962 (BZ, courtesy of sheriff).
A fundraiser in New York City following the Baton Rouge ar
rest. From left, Anne Braden, Charles McDew, and me (photo courtesy of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville).
Cover of one of the SNCC Freedom Singers albums.
Bob conducting nonviolent workshop with students one night in Talladega, 1962. Joan Browning is to my right. (Wisconsin Historical Society)
Bob taking pictures at a demonstration at City Hall in Danville, Virginia, 1963. (Wisconsin Historical Society)
Bob in the Zellners’ apartment in fall 1963 while attending Brandeis (Wisconsin Historical Society).
Signs from Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964 (BZ).
Bob, Dottie, and Jack Minnis conducting GROW workshop in New Orleans, 1968 (Wisconsin Historical Society).
With daughters Maggie, left, and Katie, in New Orleans during the GROW period. (Zellner Family Collection)
Dangerous Communist Zellner, arrested during Masonite strike in Laurel, Mississippi, 1971. Prisoner Double-O-9.
Connecticut Republican Congressman Chris Shay and his wife, Selma, 2000. (Bob Zellner collection)
Telling my story to students, trying to keep hope alive.
With Congressman Michael Forbes and Melissa Bishop, Southampton Town Democratic Chair at the MLK monument in front of Brown Chapel in Selma, 2000. (Bob Zellner collection)
The Reverend Doug Tanner and staff carry John Lewis’s banner over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, 2000.
Same occasion, Bob with Bernard Lafayette and his wife, Kate (Bob Zellner collection).
SNCC reunion in Washington, D.C., 2000. Left to right, Larry Rubin, Matthew Jones, Bob, Marshall Jones, and Harriet Tanzman. The Jones brothers are SNCC Freedom Singers. I am holding Jim Forman’s book (Wisconsin Historical Society).
My days of being arrested for civil rights are not quite over. In 2003, I was manhandled by police during a demonstration over the Shinnecock Indian Reservation near where Linda and I live in Southhampton, New York. I recently won a lawsuit against the state troopers over my injuries. (Courtesy Dana Shaw of the Southampton Press)
My days of being arrested for civil rights are not quite over. In 2003, I was manhandled by police during a demonstration over the Shinnecock Indian Reservation near where Linda and I live in Southhampton, New York. I recently won a lawsuit against the state troopers over my injuries. (Courtesy Dana Shaw of the Southampton Press)
Our Zellner family in front of the fireplace at the Seven Zs, 1963. Mom and Dad seated. The five brothers are, from youngest to oldest, left to right, Malcolm, David, Douglas, Bob, and Jim. (Zellner Family Collection)
Mom and Dad on their fiftieth wedding anniversary, Daphne, Alabama. (Zellner Family Collection)
My former college roommate, the late Townsend Ellis, sang at Linda’s and my wedding. (Zellner Family Collection)
Bob with daughters Maggie and Katie. (Zellner family collection)
Linda Miller-Zellner at home on Towd Point in the Hamptons. (Photo by Bob Zellner)
Index
A
Abernathy, Ralph 49, 52, 54, 56, 61, 63–65, 70, 77, 78, 79, 96, 219
academic freedom 87
Ackerburg, Peter 93–95, 97, 98, 99, 100
Addams, Jane 104, 106
Adkins, Tommy 39
AFL-CIO 303
Alabama 22, 73, 124, 129, 212, 215, 224, 283
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 219
Alabama National Guard 97
Alabama Sovereignty Commission 282
Alabama State College 10, 49, 50, 52, 60
Alabama-West Florida Conference. See Methodist Church
Albany, Georgia 140, 148, 174–189, 236
Albany Herald 180
Albany State College 178
Algood, Toni 313
Allen, Lewis 155
Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union 107
American Association of University Professors 67–68
American Bar Association 171
American Civil Liberties Union 283
An American Dilemma 48
American Friends Service Committee 13
American Independent Movement 290
American Indian Movement 288
American-Soviet Friendship Committee 74
Al Amin, Jamil. See Brown, H. Rap
Amite County, Mississippi 117, 150, 165
Analavage, Bob 302, 313
Anniston, Alabama 80, 89, 95, 231
Antioch College 93
Apalachicola Bay 23
Apalachicola Creek Indians 23
Ashbery, John 314
Atlanta Compromise 128
Atlanta, Georgia 122, 128, 140, 145, 286, 291
Atlanta University 135
Atlantic City, New Jersey 275–277
Avedon, Richard 98, 339
Ayers, Bill 337
B
Baez, Joan 273
Bailey, D’Army 116–117
Baker, Ella 104, 118, 135, 140, 143, 146, 148, 169, 177, 292, 315, 330
Baltimore, Maryland 231, 330
Barbee, William 95–96
Barnes, Brink 24
Barnes oyster house 24
Barnett, Ross 171, 231
Barry, Marion 112–113, 155, 169, 177, P-8
Barton Academy 27, 29
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 186
B. B. Beamon’s Restaurant 135, 145
de la Beckwith, Byron 206, 253, 260
Belafonte, Harry 185, 268, 272, 290, 314–315, 338
“beloved community” 109, 146, 178
Bennett, Tony 273
Bethune, Mary McLeod 104
Bevel, James 177, 320
Bible Belt 111
Big Apple Design 314
Bigby, Felix 122
“Big Mules” 38
Birmingham, Alabama 17, 89, 95, 231
Birmingham-Southern College 88, 220
Bishop, Jim 98–99
Bishop, Melissa P-12
Black Belt 126, 214, 223
The Black Bourgeoisie 136
black nationalism 277, 287, 293, 297, 298
Black Panther Party 286, 289, 294, 296
Bland, Barbara 320
Block, Sam 267
Bloody Sunday 283
Blount, John 23
Bob Jones College 18, 31, 332, 335
boll weevil 24
Bond, James 244
Bond, Julian 3, 9, 10, 98, 145, 177, 212, 244, 253, 277, 286, 287, 317, 318, 327, 339
Boston, Massachusetts 241, 246, 280–284, 318
Boston University 283
Boudin, Leonard 213
Bowers, Sam 303
Boynton, Amelia 320
Braden, Anne 10, 76, 77–80, 101, 114, 118–119, 139, 141, 147, 151, 174, 214, 230, 241, 278, 306, 337, P-4
Braden, Carl 10, 76
Branch, Taylor 339
Brandeis University 240, 243, 245, 280, 299
Brando, Marlon 268, 269–270
Broad Street Methodist Church 39, 45
Brooklyn, New York 129
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 49
Brown, Ed 296
Brown, H. Rap 140, 296
Browning, Joan 175, 182, 209, 339, P-6
Brown, Jess 169
Brown University 336
Brown v. Board of Education 129, 219
Brumfield, Judge 170–171, 175
Buckley, William F. 144
Burgland community 153, 157
Burgland High School 156, 169
Burlage, Dorothy 149, 245
Bush, George W. 118, 313, 330
Butler Street YMCA 125, 131–133, 176
Byrd, Oscar 324
C
Camden, Alabama 82
Campbell, Will 339
Campbell, Will D. 114–118, 140
Candler School of Theology 128
Candler, Warren A. 128
Carawan, Candy 105
Carawan, Guy 105
Carmichael, Stokely 254, 262–263, 278, 279, 286, 290–292
Carson, Clayborne 294, 339
Carter, Dan 339
Caste and Class in a Southern Town 48
Castle, Oretha 190
Caston, Billy Jack 142
Catholics 255
Cecil, Jamie 44, 45, 47
Center for Constitutional Rights 215
Chalem, Jerry 340
Chancellor, Dr. 219