{"id":31715,"date":"2017-02-06T10:12:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-06T15:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=31715"},"modified":"2017-02-09T17:03:00","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T22:03:00","slug":"selma-65-50-years-later-civil-rights-activist-bob-zellner-visits-emu-two-lectures-time-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/selma-65-50-years-later-civil-rights-activist-bob-zellner-visits-emu-two-lectures-time-students\/","title":{"rendered":"At Selma in ’65 and again 50 years later: Civil rights activist Bob Zellner visits EMU for two lectures and time with students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attacks, arrests, threats and the murders of his friends could not deter Bob Zellner, a white Southerner, from fighting for racial equality in the civil rights movement. The lifelong activist visits Eastern Mennonite University Wednesday, Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

A public lecture at 7 p.m. in the seminary\u2019s Martin Chapel centers on Zellner\u2019s memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement <\/em><\/a>(NewSouth, Inc., 2008, ). The book is a 2009 winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award, for writing about the American South which illuminates racial and social inequality and proposes a means of justice and human understanding.<\/p>\n

The memoir begins with Zellner’s childhood, part of which was spent on the \u201cwrong,\u201d or poor side, of Murder Creek in East Brewton, Alabama. His preacher father left the Ku Klux Klan as an adult. \u201cWhen Dad finally broke with his Klan brothers in the mid-1940s,\u201d writes Zellner, \u201cMom happily cut up his Klan robes and made white shirts for us to wear to Sunday school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zellner got involved in the civil rights movement while a student at Huntingdon College (Montgomery, Ala.), and became the first white field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he graduated in 1961.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wrong Side of Murder Creek<\/em> is a travelogue of civil rights hot-spots that Zellner frequented,\u201d writes civil rights legend Julian Bond in the forward. \u201cIt took a special brand of commitment and courage to do this work, and Bob never lacked for either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Zellner\u2019s recent activism<\/a> has been as an organizer in the North Carolina Forward Together Movement, a group led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 2014, Forward Together joined with Belhaven, North Carolina, mayor Adam O\u2019Neal to request the reopening of a rural hospital. Residents were dying unnecessarily while waiting for transportation to the next nearest hospital 30 miles away.<\/p>\n

Zellner and other activists marched almost 300 miles from Belhaven to Washington D.C. to raise awareness. He assisted another march to Raleigh in 2015, and has since partnered with O\u2019Neal to provide nonviolence workshops to aspiring activists.<\/p>\n

Zellner will also speak in chapel\u00a0 at 10 a.m. in Lehman Auditorium, followed by a talkback session in the Campus Center Greeting Hall. He\u2019ll also share in two meals with campus community members and meet with students in an evening event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attacks, arrests, threats and the murders of his friends could not deter Bob Zellner, a white Southerner, from fighting for racial equality in the civil rights movement. The lifelong activist ... read more about At Selma in ’65 and again 50 years later: Civil rights activist Bob Zellner visits EMU for two lectures and time with students<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,7931,5185,12503,409,5595,14145,5730,12507],"tags":[],"feature":[17241],"class_list":["post-31715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-applied-social-sciences","category-arts","category-campus-ministries","category-cjp","category-chapel","category-history","category-peacebuilding-and-development","category-undergraduate-programs","category-vaca","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nAt Selma in '65 and again 50 years later: Civil rights activist Bob Zellner visits EMU for two lectures and time with students - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2017\/selma-65-50-years-later-civil-rights-activist-bob-zellner-visits-emu-two-lectures-time-students\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"At Selma in '65 and again 50 years later: Civil rights activist Bob Zellner visits EMU for two lectures and time with students - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Attacks, arrests, threats and the murders of his friends could not deter Bob Zellner, a white Southerner, from fighting for racial equality in the civil rights movement. 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