Civil rights vets share experiences
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20100210/NEWS01/2100340
ED KEMP
ekemp@hattiesburgamerican.com
February 10, 2010
With backgrounds that could not have been more different, two
veterans of the 1960s civil rights struggle shared the podium during
a lecture Tuesday night at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Hosted by the Center for Black Studies and held in the Polymer
Science Auditorium, the lecture featured Bob Zellner, a civil rights
scholar from a family of Ku Klux Klan members, and Harold Taylor, a
former member of the Black Panthers.
During the course of the evening, both men both challenged
commonly-held views about that turbulent time period.
Taylor, 61, described his experience in the Black Panther movement as
one rooted in education and service in the form of health care and
free breakfast programs to the oppressed black community.
He assigned blame for the era's violence on the police, who occupied
South Central Los Angeles like an "occupying army" and on the FBI's
covert COINTELPRO program.
"We never declared war. They declared war on us," he said.
Taylor bumped heads repeatedly against the law.
Born in Los Angeles and recruited into the Black Panthers at age 19,
he was shot six times in a gun fight with police.
He also was one of eight Black Panthers arrested in 2007 for the
murder of a 1971 police officer. Charges against all but one of the
Panthers have since been dismissed.
"My fight was civil rights. I chose to fight for human rights in this
country," he said.
Zellner, 70, whose life story is currently being filmed by executive
producer Spike Lee, said the quest for civil rights was about more
than just race. Segregation was in place to keep up a "white ruling
class" that kept both poor whites and blacks under foot, he said.
Zellner's father and grandfather were both members of the KKK.
Zellner's shift away from his KKK roots began when his father left
the organization and gained speed during college in the early 1960s
when he met Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. He joined the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a result.
During the course of the 1960s, he was arrested 18 times in seven
different states, he said. During a 36-month span, five of his SNCC
colleagues were killed while the federal government stood by and
offered no protection to civil rights workers.
Zellner explained the title to his book "The Wrong Side of Murder
Creek, A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement," which Lee is
producing as a film called "Son of the South."
He was born in a town called East Brewton that was separated from
Brewton by Murder Creek dividing rich and poor. The experience of
being born on the wrong side of the creek, he said, led him to
sympathize with all poor people, both black and white.
"They talk about white privilege and how whites won with segregation.
I always say no, 'We lost in terms of good schools, decent pay,
decent medical care.'"
--------
Speakers encourage students
http://www.studentprintz.com/speakers-encourage-students-1.1124915
By Ross Ewing
February 11, 2010
"It takes a small and vocal minority to start a revolution," civil
rights activist Bob Zellner said Tuesday.
Zellner, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
and Harold Taylor, a former member of the Black Panther party, came
to Hattiesburg Tuesday night to speak about their participation in
the civil rights movement and how the success of the movement has
changed the nation.
Zellner, a descendant from multiple generations of Ku Klux Klan
members, was the first to speak at the Shelby Thames Polymer Science
Building. He said a major factor of becoming who he is was his
father's decision to leave the Klan.
"My father went to Europe to save the Jews, but they ended up saving
him," Zellner said of his father's experience in realizing that
people of different races and religions could still be good people.
Zellner was an early member of SNCC, an organization that is credited
with many advances in the civil rights movement such as sit-ins to
integrate lunch counters and the Mississippi Freedom Summer, a 1964
drive to register black Mississippians to vote.
Zellner also discussed nearly being lynched at his first civil rights
rally in McComb, but was spared because one of the Klansmen was a
former classmate of his and the Klan decided that maybe "it" should
be done by someone who didn't know him. Zellner escaped that night
with his life but was violently beaten for the first of many times in
his civil rights career. He was also arrested 18 times in 7 states.
Taylor spoke positively of his experience with the Black Panthers,
saying that popular portrayals of the party have been misleading.
The Black Panthers were founded in 1966 in response to perceived
failures of the non-violent civil rights movement to protect black
communities, and to respond to the violent threats of police force.
"We would give free breakfasts to children, deliver groceries for the
elderly, and hold food and clothing drives for the needy," Taylor said.
He added that the Panthers never declared war and that "they declared
war on us," echoing the sentiments of USM black studies professor
Curtis Austin, who started the night by saying, "Non-violent direct
action often results in beating."
Taylor blamed the violence of the era on the police and the federal
government, saying the Panthers were just protecting their
communities and themselves. USM student John Rubisoff said after the
speech, "I honestly never realized that the Black Panthers did so
many things for the community, I always thought they were a violent
and negative off-shoot of the civil rights movement."
Another USM student, Kyle Moor, was skeptical.
"I think it is a little misleading to imply that the Black Panthers
were all about charity and helping the needy. I am sure they did
some great things but they still did some pretty violent things as
well," Moor said. "Taylor barely even mentioned the shooting of the
police officer that he was implicated in and later cleared of."
Moor was referring to the 1971 shooting of a San Francisco police
officer that Taylor was implicated in but later cleared of any
wrongdoing. In his speech Taylor admitted to being present at the
shooting but said he had his head turned at the moment, seeing only a
flash of light before a gun fight erupted between the Panthers and
the police. Two members of the Black Panthers - Herman Bell and
Jalil Muntaquim - were later convicted of the crime.
"For segregation to work, the victims had to cooperate as well",
Zellner said." The South at that time was essentially a police state
where neither black people nor poor whites had any rights, and a few
of us saw that was wrong and were willing to die to change that."
As Zellner wrapped up for the evening he noted that, "I can see that
Mississippi has come a long way, and I challenge you all to continue
rising up!"
A movie based on Zellners memoir, "The wrong side of Murder Creek,"
is currently being produced by Spike Lee.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment