Title: Bob Zellner Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1960-1964, 1968-2009

Creator:

• Zellner, Bob, 1939-

Call Number: M2003-141; M2008-061; M2011-013

Quantity: 3.0 cubic feet (2 records center cartons and 3 archives boxes), 144 photographs, and 1 videorecording

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers, 1960-1964, 1968-2009, of Dr. Bob Zellner, a civil rights activist, documenting his involvement in various organizations and events, as well as materials from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee (NCRCC), and other activist organizations documenting their events and activities. Also included are photographs of Zellner's early life, friends, and family; Zellner with others at unidentified rallies and events; and one videotape depicting Zellner's keynote speech at a NAACP banquet in which he discusses his background, past experiences, and current issues of discrimination.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-m2003141

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John Robert “Bob” Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida. Raised in southern Alabama, he was the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. He received a BA in Sociology and Psychology from Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama in 1961. After teaching at Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, Bob was the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1963 he married Dorothy “Dottie” Miller. The couple was separated in 1980 and divorced in 1990.

Arrested 18 times in seven states, he organized in McComb, Mississippi; Albany, Georgia; Danville, Virginia; Talladega, Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama; as well as in New Haven, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts. Zellner was charged with everything from criminal anarchy in Baton Rouge to "inciting the black population to acts of war and violence against the white population" in Danville, Virginia. From 1963 to 1965, Zellner studied race relations in the Graduate School of Sociology at Brandeis University. During Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 he traveled with Rita Schwerner while taking part in SNCC's and CORE's investigation of the disappearance of her husband Mickey, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman.

When SNCC became an all black organization in 1967, Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund to organize an anti-racism project for black and white workers in the Deep South called GROW, Grass Roots Organizing Work, also called Get Rid Of Wallace. GROW built a residential educational facility in New Orleans and began organizing the GulfCoast Pulpwood Association while working in Laurel, Mississippi where a wildcat strike involving black and white Masonite factory workers and woodcutters spread across the southern states.

Following Nixon's visit to China in 1972, Bob Zellner spent six weeks in China visiting paper plants, studying pulpwood harvesting, and lecturing at the National Institute for Minorities in Beijing on SNCC, SCEF and multicultural work in the white community.

Beginning in the mid-sixties Zellner worked on documentary and feature films, traveling to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Following the release of the film Mississippi Burning (1988) Zellner toured college campuses lecturing on the real history of the struggle.

In the early 1990s, studying at Tulane University for a Ph.D. in History, Zellner wrote a dissertation on the southern civil rights movement. While working on the dissertation, he taught the History of Activism at Rosemont College, Pennsylvania, and Southampton College of Long Island University.

As co-chair of the Town of Southampton Anti-Bias Task Force in 2000, Bob's right elbow was broken when he mediated a dispute between the police and the Shinnecock Nation. Troopers attacked Dr. Zellner and members of the tribe who were protecting ancestral burial grounds from developer's bulldozers. All who were injured were charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A Federal jury, in 2007, agreeing with civil rights attorney Frederick Brewington, ruled that Zellner and the Shinnecock were victims of false arrest, malicious prosecution, and denial of civil rights. They were awarded compensatory and punitive damages.

In 2005, Bob Zellner was a featured Civil Rights Luminary in the award winning documentary Come Walk in My Shoes (2007). The Annual Faith and Politics Congressional Pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama and other sites of the freedom struggle was led by the Honorable John Lewis and filmed by Robin Smith.

Bob's memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, with Constance Curry and foreword by Julian Bond, was published by New South Books in November 2008.

This collection was received in multiple parts from the donor(s) and is organized into 3 major parts. These materials have not been physically interfiled and researchers might need to consult more than one part to locate similar materials.

• Part 1 (M2003-141): Original Collection, 1987-2002
• Part 2 (M2008-061): Additions, 1960-1964, 1989
• Part 3 (M2011-013): Additions, 1968-2009

James A. Zellner Papers (Mss 1027)
Dorothy M. Zellner Papers (Mss 674)

Acquisition Information

Presented by Robert Zellner, Southampton, New York. Accession Number: M2003-141, M2008-061, M2011-013

M2003-141	Part 1 (M2003-141): Original Collection, 1987-2002 Physical Description: 2.0 cubic feet (2 records center cartons), 20 photographs, and 1 videorecording  Scope and Content Note: The collection consists of correspondence; materials from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee (NCRCC), and other activist organizations; articles and speeches by Zellner; and other miscellaneous writings concerning social activism. The correspondence (1987-2002) includes personal letters as well as correspondence documenting his involvement in various organizations and events. The organizations' papers (1996-2002) document the events and activities of the NCRCC, SNCC, and Southampton Anti-Bias Task Force and include meeting minutes, promotional materials, and some lists of those involved. Zellner's writings include research papers, a journal on a trip to the White House, and biographical materials (1993-2002); other miscellaneous writings document the civil rights movement and SNCC. Also included are photographs of Zellner with others at unidentified rallies and events and one videotape depicting Zellner's keynote speech at a NAACP banquet in which he discusses his background, past experiences, and current issues of discrimination.
	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1-4	1987-2002
Box   1 Folder   5	undated
Box   1 Folder   6	Calendar
Box   1 Folder   7	Campaign information, 1998, 2001
Box   1 Folder   8	Councils, miscellaneous
Box   1 Folder   9	Interview transcripts
Box   1 Folder   10-11	Journal articles, 1993-2002
Box   1 Folder   12	Lawsuit materials, 1963-2001
Box   1 Folder   13	National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee, 1997-2000
Box   1 Folder   14	Newspaper articles, 1992-2001
Box   1 Folder   15	Notes, miscellaneous
Box   2 Folder   1	Papers: personal, 1994-2002
Box   2 Folder   2	People for the American Way Foundation
Box   2 Folder   3	Poetry related to Civil Rights Movement
Box   2 Folder   4	School related materials
Box   2 Folder   5	School related notes
Box   2 Folder   6	Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 1995-1996
Box   2 Folder   7-9	Southampton Anti-Bias Task Force, 1996-2002
Box   2 Folder   10	Southampton Town Democratic Committee, 1997-2002
Box   2 Folder   11-12	Special events information, 1990-2002
Box   2 Folder   13	Teaching social justice
Box   2 Folder   14	We the People
	Writings
Box   2 Folder   15-18	Robert Zellner
Box   2 Folder   19-20	Miscellaneous
PH Box   5	Photographs
Video   1	Videocassette
M2008-061	Part 2 (M2008-061): Additions, 1960-1964, 1989 Physical Description: 0.2 cubic feet (1 archives box) and 58 photographs  Scope and Content Note: Additions, 1960-1964, 1989, consisting of correspondence related to Zellner's civil rights activities, university applications, notes to the U.S. Draft Board, and other notes and ephemera. The correspondence consists of letters from lawyers, colleagues and friends, mostly while Zellner was incarcerated, including a handwritten letter from Howard Zinn. Other items include a thank you letter, a prayer bulletin, personal notes, and a revised SNCC constitution from April 29, 1962. The photographs depict Bob and his wife Dorothy with family and friends, early family home, church, and grade school in Alabama; and snapshots taken of various historic landmarks in the Civil Rights movement taken while revisiting these sites in 1989.	⇧
M2011-013	Part 3 (M2011-013): Additions, 1968-2009 Physical Description: 0.8 cubic feet (2 archives boxes) and 66 photographs  Scope and Content Note: Additions, 1968-2009, consisting of event materials, newsletters, and minutes relating to the various organizations that Zellner was affiliated with. Also included are personal papers such as student papers about Zellner's work in the Civil Rights Movement, drafts of his book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, and references to Southern historiography.	⇧
	Series: Organizations
Box   1 Folder   1	American Program Bureau Speakers
Box   1 Folder   2	Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund
Box   1 Folder   3	The Faith and Politics Institute
Box   1 Folder   4	The Federation of Southern Cooperative Land Assistance Fund
Box   1 Folder   5	Grass-Roots Organizing Work (GROW)
Box   1 Folder   6	Mississippi Community Foundation
Box   1 Folder   7	National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
Box   1 Folder   8	New Orleans [GROW]
Box   1 Folder   9	Organizing Committee for an Ideological Center
Box   1 Folder   10	Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Box   1 Folder   11	Southampton Anti-Bias Task Force
Box   1 Folder   12	Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC)
Box   1 Folder   13	Subud USA
Box   1 Folder   14	Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement
Box   1 Folder   15	Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
	Series: Personal	⇧
Box   1 Folder   16	Classes, 1994-1995
Box   1 Folder   17	Family
	Drafts and edits of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek
Box   1 Folder   18	I
Box   1 Folder   19	II
Box   2 Folder   1	Notes
Box   2 Folder   2	Planner 2003-2007
Box   2 Folder   3	Public Radio commentary
Box   2 Folder   4	Public relations
Box   2 Folder   5	Works about Zellner
Box   2 Folder   6	Schools
Box   2 Folder   7	Southern historiography
Box   2 Folder   8	Miscellaneous
PH Box   28	Series: Photographs	⇧
	Banquet or dinner photos, undated
	Filming of Ella Baker film, “Fundi” candids
	GROW project candids, 1967-1969