Based on Bob Zellner's autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, It stars Lucas Till, Lex Scott Davis, Lucy Hale, Jake Abel, Shamier Anderson, Julia Ormond, Cedric the Entertainer and Brian Dennehy in his final film role. And that’s a topic Bob Zellner knows something about. Trump and the others want to bring racism back to the open, so that's a good thing. He came up with the idea that it's about the transition. Excerpts from our interview with civil rights activist Bob Zellner. He put a big Wollensak recorder up on the desk and he said, "Look, brother, I want to know your life from the time you were born to right now, and it better hold out." As a result, over the course of the last half century, he has … I said, "When are you coming back?" The moral high ground was that we were not going to fight back. Civil rights activist and former Southampton resident Bob Zellner. I went to the SNCC office, the address that I had, and there was one person there, sitting in this almost empty office. The street was covered with blood and broken glass. His senior Sociology assignment prodded the class to use library research to find solutions to racial problems. I was working with a cinematographer, Judy Irola and we were doing movies around the world and we'd started out doing civil rights movies about the South. I'm going back to school." And he said, "I know, we've written our wills." Son Of The South Review: This Film Celebrates An Unsung Hero. After graduating, Zellner was hired by SNCC to recruit white students for the civil rights movement. It's about the beginning of the movement, for me, as a white southerner. Plus. Trying to shift the destructive mentality that locked whites into racism instead of change, Bob continues to work with, among others, Rev. I thought I'd be able to go into graduate school, maybe be a minister or something and have a more normal life, but it was not a normal time. It was a hellish scene. Their work supplied the Civil Rights Movement with its most significant assets, including the power of multi-racial solidarity and grassroots organizing. It reminded me of Nazi Germany. And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." We had to go to Tuskegee." Zellner’s memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, was recently produced by Spike Lee into a major motion picture, Son of the South. Here's the briefcase." I was egging the people on to hang me! Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory. 145 likes. #lucas till #Son of the South #Bob Zellner #screenshots. They were studying for exams. That was my commission in the Civil Rights Movement. He's an extremely good actor, and he really gets it. Zellner was SNCC’s first white field secretary. I knew that because my father had already done a tremendous journey of leaving the Ku Klux Klan that I was destined to take a part in this somehow or another. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. He brings to life heartbreaks as well as victories of the Civil Rights Era in a way that empowers and instructs the modern-day movement. Well, the paradigm, it is just the story of one of our freedom songs we had in the movement, that freedom is a constant struggle, because after the Civil Rights Movement, we never thought that women's rights would be challenged again, or that anyone would try to restrict the vote to white people ever again, or labor rights would be restricted, but what's happened is that the Civil Rights Movement, there was tremendous reaction against the Civil Rights Movement and the right wing really dug in and did the kind of grassroots community organizing that the movement had done. They'd be... entering into the present day, and letting bygones be bygones, and entering the new. Brian Dennehy playing my grandfather. I also hope that the takeaway to young people, and to women who are really leading the charge right now to save or reclaim our democracy, is that it can be done. To celebrate a life that truly deserves to be celebrated is a welcome change from watching bio-pics about gangsters and sociopaths who are best left buried in the debris of history. Bob Zellner was raised in Alabama and is the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members. Follow. How could you not become a part of the movement when Saint Rosa Parks told you to do so? Tell me a little bit about your grandfather. Honored to be a part of this. South son Debuted last year from Vertical Entertainment American Black Film Festival.. Now you are ready to make your debut at the Open Theater on February 5, 2021. Bob Zellner is ‘A Son Of The South’. Son of the South: Excerpts of our interview with civil rights activist Bob Zellner Loading... Autoplay When autoplay is enabled, a suggested video will automatically play next. They brag on all the movies that have been shot there, but not Spike Lee and Barry Alexander Brown shooting Son of the South. Actually, tell me a little bit about Lucas Till as playing the young Bob Zellner. I think all five of us students knew which side was correct and which side was right, which side was Christian, which side was American, constitutional and which side was terrorist and unconstitutional. The most emotional part was when I saw the actors taking Lucas Till, the actor that plays me, taking him out of the car to take him down to the tree. As soon as I met Barry, I got his whole story. Wow. The moral aspect was that if you didn't fight back, you had a potential of converting that person. John Seigenthaler had been beaten in the head with a pipe and kicked her under a car for dead. MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — For six decades, Gulf Coast native Bob Zellner has been on the front lines of the civil rights movement. You can't not take a position in this. Because President West, Cam West, had taken a very courageous stand when the book came out in 2008. He took a very courageous stand in 2008 and now have things that have gone so far backwards that he's not able to invite this film crew back to Huntingdon to shoot on the campus. We didn't know they were racist or what that meant. Well, Barry showed his genius as a script writer and an editor and a filmmaker. On April 28, 2021 Zellner spoke about his experience in the civil rights movement at the MacQueen Alumni Center at the University of South Alabama. I'm sorry, I'm emotional. Although he occasionally uses a broad brush dipped in primary colors while fashioning his admiring portrait of Bob Zellner, the grandson of a Ku Klux … That's was very hard to see. Son of the South is a biopic is based on The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, the autobiography of civil rights activist Bob Zellner (Lucas Till). In 2014, Zellner was featured in TIME Magazine as one of 17 "living legends" of the Civil Rights Movement to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. We've never dealt with basic racism and sexism of our country, and we really have to do that now. Right. We've been working on it for a long time. It got me into thinking about nonviolence. I think that's the real message here. We knew that at some point we'd have to make a decision. ‘Son of the South’ Review: Tale of an Alabama Activist Sometimes absorbing, sometimes mortifyingly tone-deaf, the film dramatizes the memoir of the … Well, that was in the early 80's. I just didn't want to believe that that's why, that they had a problem with the script or the situation. He's incredible. As a new generation asks, “What is my place in this struggle?” Zellner’s work points to new answers. https://variety.com/2019/film/news/spike-lee-son-of-the-south-1203129386 It's like, yeah-. At least the father and son, a reconciliation. When he was able to take the book and the whole story and figure it out, what is manageable in terms of the movie. We had to be, at least tactically, non-violent. Fellow Alabamian and former Shelter Islander Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights history of Birmingham, Carry Me Home, will facilitate the discussion. That brought back a lot of emotion to me. That would be like a pitched battle. He got the character right away and he's really good looking, much better than me, but everybody says there's a faint resemblance between the young me and Lucas Till. Until 1962 Zellner was SNCC’s only white field secretary. These are incredible actors in this movie. We brought people together across all kinds of barriers and lines, and now we can do it again to save our democracy. They were the people that deserved to be followed. Son of the South is the true story of Bob Zellner, born into a Ku Klux Klan family and who became one of the first white volunteers for the civil rights movement in Sixties Alabama. First time I went back to Huntingdon College campus, I was arrested. An incredibly powerful true story. But when I was in the scene, when I was doing the cameo in the hanger scene, I was kind of into the scene, so it was not so bad. Well, the one thing that I would like to be sure of, is that young people hear about this movie. Even though it came from a background that only knew hatred. We started working on the script, and the first thing, I think the first draft of the script was done in about 1987, so a long time ago. Dr. William J. Barber II, the NAACP, voting rights groups, and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The examples of Mrs. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer. Part of it is that Jeff Sessions is alumni of Huntingdon College. He was not just white, but from Alabama, and his father and grandfather had been members of the Ku Klux Klan. of South Ala. We did it 50 years ago. #son of the south #bob zellner #lucas till #son of the south spoilers #whump #whumpgif #othergifs #comfort #hair … He said that my father didn't repudiate his Klan views, but he said, "You are my son. Especially when you couldn't have thousands of people demonstrating, carrying arms. At one point, the ministers here that had worked with my father and Dr. King and Joe Lowery, they said, "Your Daddy's about to die and you need to go reconcile with him. After his eighteenth arrest, Bob and his partner, Elizabeth Pamela Smith have moved back to his home state of Alabama, where they worked to elect Senator Doug Jones and support the work of EJI, Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. READ MORE: Spike Lee to EP Civil Rights Drama ‘Son of the South’ Based on Bob Zellner’s Autobiography. The same is true for VOD and digital. 3/? Lucas Till as Bob Zellner in Son of the South. Well, it's very important to shoot it right here. Was it you guys are just at the church, "Well, we're not really, we're just here to write a paper and I'm not getting involved with anything.". We need people to know that the Civil Rights Movement was led mainly by strong women, not these men that are held up in history as the leaders of the movement. I had been banned from campus for 40 years, not allowed to come back. We're here, we're here in Montgomery. He obviously started making notes, at least mental notes. Fall (Friday, … I hope that's the takeaway. He said, "I don't know, but you just open up the office every morning by nine o'clock and don't leave before 5:30 And take all the messages." For young men trying to break the barrier, it’s an emotional vehicle. I didn't know the extent to which I would and the lifelong involvement, but I knew that I was destined to do that. It's hard to separate because they're your family. Well, the way I first met Barry Alexander Brown is in New York City, when we were both working on different kinds of films and movies. Zellner’s memoir, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, was recently produced by Spike Lee into a major motion picture, Son of the South. Bob Zellner's memoir "Wrong Side of Murder Creek" has been made into a movie. How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? Bob Zellner, Writer: Son of the South. Bob (Lucas Till) witnesses the extent of racism in Alabama and sets out to stop it in “Son of the South.”. Isn't that ironic? A lot of people see it as a moderate or a even cowardly stance, but it took a tremendous amount of courage to be non-violent in those situations. Until 1962 Zellner was SNCC’s only white field secretary. You go there, there's literally nothing there. Based on the Bob Zellner… It's the first time I think anybody has made a film about a young civil rights organizer, especially a white Southern organizer, deciding to go against all of our raising in the South and to take part in one of the most historical movements of right time. How could you not make a decision at that point? The white supremacists and the neo-Nazis and all the things that have been going on lately that feel like we're almost fighting this battle again. They had busted all the cameras. Zellner’s autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, was recently adapted into a feature film produced by Spike Lee, called Son of the South, and is currently available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime. What he did do was, when my father left the KU Klux Klan, he had disowned my father. I think he's wonderful. We had the moral high ground, but it was also very practical. Bob Zellner is a writer, known for Son of the South (2020), Breath of Freedom (2014) and Moyers & Company (2012). How could you not get involved with that? His continued active role in the movement—notably as one of 16 arrested with Rev. And sometimes when I tell my university students that I was in jail with Dr. King and was mentored by Rosa Parks and written about by Eleanor Roosevelt in her last book, they say, "Did you meet Harriet Tubman or Abraham Lincoln?" What do you hope is to take away from this, when people see this movie? N'T get over Murder Creek '' has been made into a movie and. 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