Zellner Blog

Bob Mants

2012-01-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Bob Mants: December 14, 2011

Bob Zellner

Bob Mants had something contagious. He possessed a physical bravery that was sometimes breathtaking. He is known for that. But his bravery is not all I am talking about. Crazyhorse was brave beyond all measure battling with encroaching Europeans seeking to take lands belonging to the Sioux and other tribes. Crazyhorse became know for that. That great Native American leader is famous and honored as a leader of his people, however, not just for his bravery in battle, but as a thinker with wisdom and the knowledge of how to achieve his people’s goals.

Crazyhorse, quiet and humble, dreamed of uniting and mobilizing the great Teton Circle of the Sioux Nation. Mants, determined to unite his rural community behind the Black Panther, taught that the combined power of grassroots people could throw off the boot of Southern and American racism.

Courage, combined with both wisdom and humility, is what Bob Mants has. Mants, which is what SNCC people called Bob, had both physical courage and the vision required of a great leader. Endowed by his Creator with the magnetic personality along with a philosophically strong sense of his own personhood, he earned his knowledge and education through hard work and determination. The vision part of his makeup, however, I believe, he caught from SNCC. That, to me, is the contagious part of the puzzle that was Bob Mants.

Bob Mants and Bob Moses shared quietness and a reluctance to stand in the stage lights; that became a powerful leadership tool. Perhaps they acquired such power from our great mentor, Ms Ella J. Baker, the quiet woman who sat by the door. Bob Mants also learned leadership through his experience in and study of Africa. Ms Baker seldom spoke except to “sum up” or condense the sense of the group. Like elders in Native American culture and that of Africa, her power lay not in convincing others of her point of view, but by shining a light on what everyone already agreed to or knew. She often knew we had reached consensus before we did. Ella Baker wasn’t shy about firm leadership when necessary, however, as evidenced by her opinion there was no contradiction between direct action and voter registration. Voter registration and political organizing in Mississippi and Alabama, as Mants understood, was direct action.

Bob Mants was infected by his people’s and the people’s passion for justice. He passed it to fellow freedom sisters and brothers. As Michael (Wright) Oshoosi said in his remembrance, “Bob was a steadfast organizer and his demeanor gave people courage…” SNCC organizers exhibited steadiness in extreme situations because most had decided some things were more important than long life. When one prepares to die for the common good, that person attains immense power.

Among my many personal memories of Bob is his willingness to correct people when they are wrong. His quiet demeanor masked a remarkable intellect and a firm pride. We were together at a symposium at Brown University and I was being unusually bombastic, as I can sometimes be. Having been in the North for some time, and having trouble being heard in fast talking Yankee circles, I had unconsciously developed a habit of interrupting people. It seemed necessary if one had anything to say. Mants took exception to my interruptions, needless to say, and told me in no uncertain terms to please wait until he had finished what he had to say before responding. Thank you, my brother.

Power to Mants, the ancestors with whom he dwells, and power to the people for whom he fought!

My deepest condolences go to all of Bob’s extended family. I loved Bob and I did not tell him the last time I saw him.

Bob Zellner

http://www.crmvet.org/mem/mantsb.htm

Zellner Empowers Occupy Movement

2011-10-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

Adopted as the feelings of OCCUPY WALL STREET.
All movement people should send to their blogs, facebooks, and other public social media.
EMPOWER THE OCCUPY FORCES
Bob Zellner Southamton, NY October 26, 2011
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011
Translations: French, Slovak, Spanish, German, Italian

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

Shriveled Heart Syndrome Damages Occupy America

2011-10-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

Southampton, NY: Conservatives Using SHS (shriveled heart syndrome) to Counter
Occupy Movement.

It’s not just for southerners, the shriveled heart syndrome, any more. David
Brooks and other northerners are also susceptible to SHS: it appears to be
contagious. Canadian born conservative Brooks considers all US citizens
southerners and he’s a Jew who used to be liberal.

During Reconstruction, doctors first described shriveled heart syndrome. It’s
becoming a powerful weapon for the 1% rich due to its history and its
devastating affect on the body politic. Mostly liberal or progressive doctors
coming down with nurses to bind the wounds of our civil war, these physicians
began listing human symptoms of SHS, heretofore mostly confined to dogs. In
dogs it is called heartworms.

Southerners often discount the existence of SHS due to its evolutionary
origin. SHS can best be understood as a social disease evolved over several
centuries with roots in the early years of our nation’s history.

David Books, accused of spreading the disease when he pooh poos empathy as a
useful aspect of society, is an educated historian from the University of
Chicago, a well-known hot bed of empathy. He should know better.

Empathy, Brooks certainly knows, was the key human emotion our founding fathers
and mothers had to destroy when they needed to simplify slavery by making it
hereditary only for black folks. This original sin, clearly recognized as a
moral compromise, cleared up the question of who were slaves and who were
servants. It also defined white and black, an improvement over the former
confusion. People became “white” who had never considered themselves white.
Class, heretofore the prime divider of people, suddenly discovered a twin named
Race.

Shriveled Heart Syndrome then went viral sweeping the body of America with
speed rivaled only by HIV. It stands to reason that Americans, especially
southerners, where slavery persisted, were hit hardest. They cultivated harden
hearts while unlearning empathy. Farm boys and girls, already accustomed to
withholding sympathy and empathy from farm animals as they were exploited and
slaughtered, took the short step to withholding love and sympathy from certain
humans. You can’t stand on your brother’s throat, confiscating the fruit of his
loins, his woman, his labor, his soul without becoming an awfully mean person.
Slavery, defined as an act of war, could be maintained only by a garrison state
augmented by vigilantly terror in the form of the poor white (trash) “paddy
rollers.” This lasted from the early 1600s to the civil war, two full
centuries.

Following Reconstruction, a cruel joke on the freedwomen and men, federal
protection left the south. Former slaves, told to return to the tender mercies
of their former owners were informed, “You are not going to get the tools,
seeds and land we promised you as small reparations for years of free labor –
forget forty acres and a mule! Get over it! Go back with hat in hand to Massa
and work for whatever he is willing to pay. “
More hardening of the arteries shrunk southern hearts as new forms of slavery
were built - sharecropping and Jim Crow, then prison labor, where bodies were
bought and sold as of old. As late as 1922 Claude McKay, offering a poetic
lesson in how Shriveled Heart Syndrome is passed down through generations and
from mother to son, wrote:

“The ghastly body swaying in the sun
The women thronged to look, but never a one
Showed sorrow in her eyes of steely blue;
And little lads, lynchers that were to be,
Danced round the dreadful thing in fiendish glee.”

He focuses on unrepentant members of the mob ensuring a continuing lineage of
white fiends.

Unfree labor persisted in the south through the New Deal, even to the present.
This year, for instance, the largest prison strike in our history opposing
slave labor, occurred throughout the state of Ga., home of vaunted CNN world
news.

Not a peep of it in the news. A small article in David Brook’s New York Times,
soon squelched by the Obama administration, reveled the prison uprising to be
nonviolent and well organized, bringing together skin heads, Latino
gangbangers, Muslims, Christians, black folk, white folk - everybody. Had the
prison revolt been violent, the roads around every private and public prison in
Georgia would have been covered with trucks sporting satellite dishes, dishing
out the thrill for the entire world to see. But no, this was well organized
and nonviolent. So get over it, no news here. Our country can’t allow this to
spread – it’ll kill the cash cow cradle to prison pipeline.

The scariest thing to Wall Street about the Occupy Movement is that young
people are getting their own word out. Social media along, with old methods
like putting out their own News Letter, allows circumvention of David Brooks
and the Times. They’d like you to believe nothing will be done if you lost
your home and your job – just suck it up!

Dean Baker in his column, BEAT THE PRESS, asks why nothing will be done to help
the 26 million unemployed, underemployed or those giving up looking. “The
reason,” Dean says, “is that people like David Brooks and rest of the 1 Percent
don't give a damn about you."

This is the shriveled heart syndrome in spades.

BOB ZELLNER
October 21, 2011

MLK Monument Dedication

2011-10-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

Oct. 15-16, Washington, DC

Report from the front:
Yesterday I spoke briefly to First Lady, Michelle and President Barack Obama. This is a report from the front, the front of the Civil Rights/Political establishment. I celebrated the entire morning with a small knot of Americans including, in addition to the President and First Lady, and their two children (the dog was missing), John Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Joe Biden, Attorney General Holder, General Powell, Tim Geithner, Ken Salazar, on down to Madame Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Ledisi, Tommy Hilfinger, Rev. Sharpton, Nikki Giovanni, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Mary Mary (both of them) and others too numerous to drop. I saved two seats up front for Eric Falkenstein and Senator Wofford, but was asked to give up mine for Dan Rather. Since he is older than me, I agreed.

Strangely, our High Class section was first come first served and I joked with other before-dawn guests that I didn’t usually get up this early for Sunday services. When Eric and Senator Wofford opted to sit with the masses, I gave their carefully guarded seats to Kerry Kennedy and a friend from Texas. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democratic Whip and movement jailbird, sitting with us, joined Dorothy Cotton, Kerry, me and James Taylor in every lusty chorus, especially Lift Every Voice and Sing. Jumping up and down, we waved and shouted at every well-turned line delivered by good speakers.

Of interest to SNCC, and other once youthful movement veterans, are Joe Lowery, C. T. Vivian, Marian Wright Edelman, Doris Derby and husband, actor Bob Banks, Pam and Julian Bond, along with son, Michael. There was also Frank Smith, Frank Holloway of Atlanta, Marion Barry, Chuck Neblett, Dorothy Cotton, Bernard Lafayette and Kate, big and little Jesse Jackson.

The point of this name dropping orgy is that listing every person in the so called VIP section wouldn’t approach 1% of even the still living movement leadership cadre. Apparently there was no reaching out to great leaders still with us like Gloria Richardson Dandridge, the Ladner ladies, Joyce and Dorie, Dianne Nash, Dottie Miller, Connie Curry, and Jim Lawson - where was he?

The guts of this dedication, however, the 99.9%, stood in front of the Big Stage. They viewed celebs from our section, trundled back and forth, some in wheel chairs, for fleeting appearances before the masses. Not one bold print name up there, we all know, would have, could have, become what or who they are, absent those folks standing just below.

Consulting a voluminous compendium of notes, I’m astonished that so few references to Occupy Wall Street were heard. Ambassador Young’s panel, following the dedication and immediately before going to the White House for a movement veteran’s reception, is instructive. The trio of altacockers, Ambassador Andy Young, Senator Harris Wofford and Congressman John Dingle of Detroit, mentioned only in passing the Occupy America Movement now going worldwide. WE ARE THE WORLD – OCCUPY IT!

I shouted for them to discuss the Occupy America Movement but they missed the point. The old men just didn’t get it until every question during Q and A turned on the inspiring new movement upsurge. Had there been a woman or a young person on the panel things might have been different.

Bob Zellner
October 17, 2011

Occupy the World Movement

2011-10-19T16:51:00.001-07:00

October 19, 2011

Southampton, NY: Occupy Wall Street captures the imagination of the people of New York City, possibly the most progressive and diverse city in the world. This is as it should be. The liberal northeast, in our country’s history, often leads movements for social change; Abolition, anti-lynching, a woman’s right to vote, and labor rights are but a few examples.

Next the OWS movement moved to the hinterland, from Wall Street to Main Street, and now, like the Arab Spring, it is going global. WE ARE THE WORLD: OCCUPY IT!

For example, this just in: OCCUPY HARLEM MOBILIZATION. We stand in solidarity with Occupiers of Wall Street. Friday, October 28, 2011, 6:30 – 9:30 PM at St. Philip’s Church, 204 West 134th Street (Adam Clayton Powell Blvd).

The freedom struggle of Black people and their allies around the world provides a vital engine moving things forward, always forward. This newest class war, in the finest sense, can avoid the usual trajectory taken in world economic crises. Ruling classes traditionally bail themselves out on the backs of the poor, the working class and relatively powerless, what used to be called, Third World Countries. A favorite saying in the junkyard dog-mean south is, “Don’t worry about the mule, just load the wagon!

The 99% in Greece today launched a general strike against EU and Wall Street austerity measures. All we are saying in the Occupy movement is that the world certainly needs austerity, but it must be of a new kind. No longer can rich 1% nations and individuals appropriate most of the world’s goods and riches.

We talk, organize, and take action to bring about a world class struggle where people, not power elites and power institutions, decide what’s to be cut and how to nurture and protect humans and animals.

World Class Struggle depends on building a world-class movement using all the energy, creativity and technology at our disposal. Revolutionaries of North America bear a heavy responsibility, being as we are in the very entrails of Kock-crazed Globezilla wreaking havoc astride the world since the beginning of modern times.

Our determination is strong because the whole world is watching the ridiculous position taken by our ruling class here in good old USA. They say the ship of state will remain afloat simply by cutting welfare, Medicare, public education, emergency assistance, foreign aid, and any other program right-wingers and Republicans oppose.

These same oligarchs gleefully spent all our public money on expeditionary and preemptive wars, and then they incurred massive debt bailing out billionaires. Because the public was quiescent, our rightwing-tinted ruling class saw they could do anything they wanted to abuse “the people.”

But they went too far! They know no shame. Amazing how men with millions and billions of personal wealth, still want more. After years of redistributing world and American wealth upward, through tax breaks and loop holes for the rich and the super rich, their party, the Republicans, in the face of national and world depression, refused to increase revenue even by closing unconscionable tax loop holes. No! Only cuts directed at the middle class and the poorest can be used to correct this rotten economy.

Maintaining their voracious amassing of unprecedented personal and private wealth, our rulers helped themselves to what was left of the public treasury in the name of saving “the financial system.”

Well the ruling classes of the world can no longer do as they please. State power can now change hands quickly and relatively nonviolently, thanks to the lessons of our freedom movement.

Reform of the system, even if it once seemed desirable, even doable, is no longer possible. As Stokely/Kuame Ture, Musaka and others famously urged, we now seem Ready for Revolution.

Reform or Revolution, a constant theme in people’s struggle from the beginning, whenever and wherever that was, is now on the table for real.

Reform seems impossible; its time revolutionaries think about ideas for the near and far future – strategy and tactics.

The bedrock of protection for Americans, habeas corpus, was given up without a whimper in the name of being more secure. This strangely unpatriotic action, urged upon our stupid right-wingers by the corporate fascist Kock brothers, sole funders of the Tea Party, was to protect us from terrorist. At the same time, party geniuses like Michelle and Sarah urged common folk to cling to their guns as protection against the government? Why would anyone gladly give up habeas corpus while viewing with alarm the power of the central government? I guess we should be happy that our opposition does not think straight, if at all.

The occupy movement should give President Obama, a center-right politician, an opportunity to turn more leftward. It might not be enough to save capitalism, as FDR did, but possibly a left turn will be enough to give him and us some breathing room.

I’m sure President Obama and his up to now uncomprehending staff wish they had, by executive order, put millions to work on infrastructure, as soon as the bottom fell out. These millions of workers, continuing to pay rent and mortgages, would have allowed housing and jobs, the center piece of the bust, to bounce back quicker. I never understood why this could not be done at the same time measures were being taken to save the banks. Isn’t the bureaucracy big enough to do several big tasks at the same time?

We are in deep cocoa, however, if President Obama fails to get another term. His relative progressivism keeps harsher measures of the Patriot Act off the necks of change agents. A Perry or even Romney, White House might land many of us in prison or underground. We can be “disappeared” due to lack of habeas corpus, PRODUCE THE BODY!

Ready for revolution? Let’s hope that we are. It might be delayed a while but it can no longer be stopped.

Bob Zellner
Southampton, NY.

Our Pilgrimage in the Rear View Mirror

2011-03-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

The trip this year was outstanding.

It was serene and peaceful, as democrat and republican lions bedded down with democrat and republican sheep. Not an angry or radical word was spoken and all was well with the world.

But wait! It transpired during the most horrendous tumult the world has recently seen. Mubarake, the Egyptian dictator, had just fallen to people power as had Tunisia. Remember him, we’ve almost forgotten his name. Libya rose up against Kaddafi. Bahrain’s people were demanding rights while Saudi Arabia and the US were poised to prop up its ruling class. Yemen and Syria were suddenly afflicted with democracy and then the physical world fell apart.

Japan cracked, then went up in smoke and flood while their vaunted technology failed utterly, spewing radioactive clouds over its people before wafting on the winds to California. We were awed at the simple engineering mistake of putting backup generators in basements, vulnerable to the tsunami. Hawaii shook belching flame and ash while waiting for the tidal wave and its native people yearned for freedom. Seismologist and climatologist mused over the possibility that global heating might contribute to the outbreak of quakes and volcanoes.

Maybe we should not have been quite so out of it and serene, given the world situation, not to speak of Wisconsin and the continued assaults on our own democracy.

Another outstanding feature of the Faith and Politics Alabama Pilgrimage this year was the large size of the delegation and the enthusiasm with which everyone approached each new adventure – Birmingham local speakers at the 16th Street Baptist Church were inspiring with their stories of recovering from the bombing and death. The band for the p3 young peoples was mind blowing. Average age 14.

The Rosa Parks museum was a high point where every single pilgrim bought my book. It was fun for me to have such a high-powered captive audience at Rev. Abernathy’s church, which is so central to the civil rights movement. Everyone laughed with me over how timid us little white boys were as we got swept up in the movement with veterans like John Lewis and Dianne Nash, Bernard Lafayette, and those gorgeous singers, Betty Fikes and Dorothy Cotton. Every person in the church seemed to understand the power of Ms Parks saying to me that I had to take a stand, or as John Lewis says, “Get in the way.”

To Faith and Politics and its new and old leadership, I say keep the faith and the good works!

Bob Zellner March 21, 2011

Tune in to The Injustice Files, Friday, March 4

2011-03-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Keith Beauchamp has done more to re-open cold case civil rights murder cases than anyone. Please help Keith, CBS, and me get the word out about this great documentary to be shown tomorrow. William Moore is a true American Hero who was murdered in my home state of Alabama. We know who assassinated him but the murderer is still being protected by God knows whom?

Dear Friends,

Please tune in this Friday (March 4, 2011) for "The Injustice Files" Episode 3: He Walks Alone.

On the Investigation Discovery Channel at 9pm est /8pm CST.

Episode 3: 'He Walks Alone ' profiles the murder of William Lewis Moore who was the first known white martyr of the American civil rights movement! Please spread the word!

Thanks in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Keith A. Beauchamp
Executive Producer/Host
"The Injustice Files"

P. S. View a sneak peek of Episode 3 here:
http://investigation.Discovery.Com/videos/the-injustice-files-the-dangers-of-southern-activism.Html#icpgn=idhpdrl4

Click here for channel finder:
http://investigation.Discovery.Com/channel-finder/?Ecid=icpgn=idtpnv

Click Here for Channel finder:
http://investigation.discovery.com/channel-finder/?ecid=icpgn=idtpnv

11th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage

2011-03-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Observations on the occasion of the 11th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage organized by the Faith and Politics Institute and led by Congressman John Lewis from March 4 to March 6, 2011

Fellow Pilgrims,
A lot is happening in our country and the world as we retrace the steps of recent history. When John Lewis and Hosea Williams placed their feet on the Selma side of the bridge that day heading east toward Montgomery they had little idea of their odyssey’s ultimate significance for the South, the nation and the world.

We are witnessing the triumph of the philosophy and tactics of nonviolent direct action worldwide. Al Qaeda terrorist are hanging their heads for the carnage wrought by their nihilistic violence. A simple Tunisian vegetable vendor tired of being disrespected and mistreated by his autocratic government and its police sparked an unstoppable grassroots thrust toward democracy. It is toppling entrenched ruling classes and dictators right and left, leaving heretofore-untouchable power élites checking flight schedules.

As Congressmen and Senators and opinion makers bond together during this long weekend, let’s think and pray about Wisconsin and the rights of working people, the elimination of hate and violent rhetoric from political discourse, and the spread of democracy and humanity world wide.

It took a lot of faith for John and Hosea to take that first step and it takes a lot of faith to do good politics these days.

Bob Zellner March 1, 2011

Remarks delivered at the community gathering at Southampton Town Hall to respond to the Arizona shooting - “Coming Together for Civility.” Bob Zellner, Community Organizer

2011-01-18T12:46:00.000-08:00

Pastor Obama – Bringing Unity to a Divided Nation

“Last Wednesday in Tucson Pastor Obama ministered to his flock to begin the nation’s healing process. His simple request was to make our political discourse worthy of our youngest citizens, like Christina Taylor Green. The nine year old came to learn about government from Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, obviously a role model for her.

Here in front today as I speak are our school children learning about government. May our political discourse and debate in Long Island and the Hamptons be worthy of their optimism and hope for the future.”

At this point Quogue Village Police Chief Robert B. Coughlan collapsed behind me. Luckily the Emergency Response authorities were present and the meeting ended suddenly in the very human scene of caring for others. I checked on the condition of Chief Coughlan and our town supervisors assures us all is well.

The Southamton Press reported that he was “taken to Southampton Hospital from the event by Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance [where he] was reported to be in stable condition following the event, …[and] would most likely return to work on Monday.

The chief, who the mayor believes is in his late 50s, was seen clutching a flagpole to hold himself up during the outdoor ceremony, according to Mr. Sartorius. Temperatures were in the low 20s at the time, with an even lower windchill factor.

Chief Coughlan then collapsed. His face was ashen and he was unresponsive, the mayor said.
“He’s fine. He’s talking. He’s coherent. He has the flu,” Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said following the event. “We think he’s going to be just fine, OK?”

I had planned to comment on the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday falls exactly one week after the savage shootings in Tucson. I wondered why more attention had not been shown to that fact by President Obama and others who were commenting on the national level.

But what I intended to say can wait until tomorrow’s blog. Suffith it to say that winter has come to the Hamptons. Back to back blizzards have driven even the foxes out of the deep woods to forage for scraps near our compost. Early sunsets make the huge pale yellow sun look like heavens spotlight bouncing off the darkening snow drifts.

Even in the bitter cold, however, our little community came together to celebrate civility in politics, peace in politics, and that is a good thing. All notches on the spectrum were present but one note still reminds me of how far we have to go. I was late getting to the meeting and did not know, when I was invited to speak, that no representative from the non-office holding community had addressed the assembly. Lou Ware our NAACP Branch President, Rev. Marvin Dozier, Rector Mike Smith from the Shinnecock Nation, and many many more community activists were present and could have been asked to say a few words of unity. Martin Luther King spent a lot of time talking to children. Our little school children need these role models to be held up continually.

Peace in Politics, amen!
Bob Zellner, January 15, 2011

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF GIFFORDS

2011-01-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of nonpartisan national mourning for our slain and wounded citizens, the community gathering announced for 12 PM Jan. 11, 2011 has been postponed until Friday.

Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and Congressman Tim Bishop released details for a more formal and inclusive event below:

In light of the tragic event that took place in Arizona over the weekend and the discussion that has ensued regarding the current “tone” of public discourse throughout the country, communities nation-wide are responding with commitments to be more respectful and civil in expressing their opinions and in their treatment of others.

In support of this important movement to shine a light on our own actions and make a conscience effort to wield our treasured freedoms with more tolerance and grace, you are invited to participate in a “Coming Together for Civility” event Friday, January 14 at 9:00 a.m. on the steps of Southampton Town Hall.

The goal of the event is two fold:

(1) To express our sympathies together as one community regarding the tragic events that took place over the past weekend in Arizona and;

(2) To make a public commitment to civility within our own community regardless of personal beliefs or party affiliation.

A wide spectrum of community leaders will attend including elected officials, fire and police chiefs, EMS leaders, VFW leaders, local ministers, school representatives and more. The event will also be open to the public, so please share this invitation with your memberships, friends and neighbors.

If you do plan to attend, kindly alert my office so we can plan accordingly.

I hope to see you on Friday!

Sincerely,
Anna Throne-Holst
Supervisor
Town of Southampton
116 Hampton Rd
Southampton, NY 11968
Ph: (631) 283-6055
athrone-holst@southamptontowny.gov

Zellner Blog: PEACE IN POLITICS

The attempted assassination of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords reminds me of growing up in the South where violence seemed to be as American as cherry pie.

Children in the Bible belt were to be seen, not heard. Our little world was separate from adults for the most part except for the occasional housekeeper or baby sitter. When company came for dinner, children sat at a separate table, often waiting for adults to eat before we were fed.

When chicken was fried, we got necks, backs, the feet and occasionally chicken head. Someone somehow ate all parts. Depression gripped the South and food was not to be wasted. I didn’t know what second-class citizens were but we younguns were definitely that.

Religion, philosophy and politics were discussed, if at all, out of earshot of children because, “Little pitchers have big ears.” Infidelity, violence, and scandal of any nature were discussed in hushed tones - never in the open, like today. Our little ears, however, were full of everyday violence like the public lynching out from nearby Dothan, Alabama. When I was five, special trains brought five thousand whites to watch the murder of a black man. Children were encouraged by their parents to stick forks in the charred flesh of the victim after he was dragged through the streets behind a pickup.

Daddy’s “nervous breakdown” became the Zellner’s hushed up scandal. Methodist ministers didn’t have emotional problems. An “eccentric” bachelor uncle or maiden aunt locked away in Southern attics, wearing Confederate gray or antebellum gowns, ubiquitous in literature, shows that mental disorder was something to be ashamed of. The prevalence of mental illness made appearance paramount. Frantz Fanon explained imperialism and the resulting mental disorder among oppressed people. Thorough study of the mental illnesses of oppressors has not been attempted.

Dad’s KKK membership was, no doubt, the cause of his breakdown. He was trying to be a minister of the gospel while practicing racial discrimination. Although his Klan connection was never mentioned, Dad’s dilemma, like the American one, was professing one thing about race while doing another. Half the population lording over the other half, taking the best of everything while leaving the rest to make do on scraps, was bad business indeed. Dad also concluded that holding black people down also impoverished white people. Rich people, happy to let poor white trash do the dirty work, laughed at both. They had always controlled blacks through terror, slavery being maintained only by a constant state of violence against the enslaved. One human enslaving another is an act of war.

The rhetoric and reality of violence and war, consequently, permeates our history and our politics. Sarah Palin, however, should apologize for placing crosshairs over the district of Congresswoman Gifford. Ms Palin defended herself by saying she is only playing politics as usual. Making herself the victim, she claims she suffered a “blood libel,” an insult to Jews who actually suffered.

Listen tonight to our great President Obama as he binds the wounds inflicted in Tucson. His political style is the opposite of the current crop of rightwing haters. With real commitment we can all work together to bring peace to politics.

Bob Zellner January 12, 2011

Invitation to Town Hall Meeting honoring Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford

2011-01-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 9, 2011

Invitation to Town Hall Meeting honoring Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford –
Southampton Town Hall
12 Noon, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011
– Bob Zellner asks you to save the date.

My friend Bob Filner, Democrat, who represents my brother Douglas Zellner in San Diego, remembers his fallen colleague. “Gabby Gifford’s is a good legislator and a good friend. We work closely together as U.S./Mexico border Congress members. We pray for her full recovery."

Filner, a supporter of the nonpartisan Congressional Faith and Politics Institute lead by John Lewis, faulted incendiary talk radio programming as contributing to a climate that may have encouraged today's violence. "I … believe the violent context of the recent election is responsible for this tragedy," he said. "Many of us were physically threatened by those who believed they were ‘right’ and we were ‘wrong’ – we were ‘enemies,’ rather than sincere people with different opinions. Their incendiary talk – given legitimacy by equally incendiary talk shows – makes violence an acceptable political tactic. Violence as acceptable – bolstered by easy access to guns – made this tragedy almost inevitable. Let us all resolve to recommit ourselves to what is truly exceptional about America – that we conduct our politics with debate and respect, not violence.”

Congressman Bob Filner and I have accompanied Senators and Congress Members to Selma, Alabama each year to protest violence in politics (like that visited upon John Lewis of SNCC and citizens seeking the vote for African Americans.) Attendees include then Senator Barrack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, James Clyburn, Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist and other prominent leaders.

My experience with President Obama and Congressman John Lewis leads me to address this plea those who use violent rhetoric in political debate. “Please prepare in advance an obituary for victims of your hate. Does your incitement to violence load the gun for some unbalanced shooter? Are you giving someone in the shadows permission to kill?”

Bob Zellner
phone: 631 680-3483
email: bob@bobzellner.com

Waiting for the Second Coming . . . of Obama

2010-12-14T06:07:00.000-08:00

The first time he came he could walk on water. Now, some are wondering whom he is carrying water for.

Is Obama carrying water for the rich people and the establishment he ran against? Or is he simply overcompensating for being called a radical and a socialist? The opposition has repeated that big lie so often and so loudly that it becomes believable to millions of otherwise sane people.

Ironically the more our President moves to the center trying to prove that he’s no radical, and certainly not a socialist, the more the right wing tea party Republicans move the center to the right. They’ve played this cynical game as long as I can remember when a real loser of a Senator, McCarthy of Wisconsin, learned he could flush a covey of liberals simply by waving a paper and bellowing that liberals were communists.

People who understand socialism know that Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is a centrist in every sense of the word. Moreover, he’s a centrist with a rightward lean. Europeans laugh when right-wingers call Hillary and Barack leftist.

A cartoon depicting a right-winger and a left-winger holding signs, had one saying, “I hate Obama. He’s a socialist.” And the other, “I hate Obama. He’s not a socialist. The recent midterm bloodletting begs the question - did running away from the dem record of achievement save any seats? No. Democrats could not possible have lost more seats and we may even have been able to save some. Independents might have given Obama and the Dems credit for at least standing their ground. But when Democrats ran away from their own accomplishments, how could independents and middle of the roaders stick with Obama, “the change artist.”

Adding insult to injury, far right Republicans gearing up for 2012 are now promising, “CHANGE.” Ignoring the fact that they obstructed every effort to save the country, cynical Republicans trumpet, “Obama couldn’t get the job done in 18 months, give us a chance and we will do better.”
Maybe one reason for Democratic capitulationism is the fact that liberals, progressives and left radicals failed to maintain pressure on Obama to do the right thing and stand up to the crazies. The administration also incredibly turned its back on young people, failing to assign anyone in government the task of continuing the mobilization that was so important to Obama’s victory.

The political spectrum in this country, after more than a century of red baiting, has now shifted so far to the right that the Republican Party itself is proving to be too liberal. Their tigers, Rush Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and Bachman, egged on by numerous crazies – the Delaware witch, etc. are so addicted to blood and political mayhem, that the tigers they’ve unleashed are likely to tear their handlers. Tan Man and mainstream Republicans are hanging on to the tiger’s tail for dear life. To mix the metaphor, will Dr. Frankenstein control the monster or vice versa? Old-line Republican leaders don’t seem to have the guts to stand against their crazies.

Do we, Mr. President?

Lead us Obama and we will have your back. We are whom we have been waiting for but we do require a leader. If you chicken out, and we chicken out, how long will it be before corporate fascism runs America from behind the Oz curtain?

We fell into this predicament because we were happy and relieved to see Obama elected. From jump we should have been on him to do the right thing. The things he promised during the campaign. We dare not make the same mistake between now and the presidential election in two years.

Bob Zellner
Southampton, NY.

Obama letter number 2, November 31, 2010: EAGLE, TURKEY OR JUST PLAIN CHICKEN?

2010-12-10T10:49:00.001-08:00

Dear Mr. President,

When we called you a change artist we didn’t mean that YOU would change, we thought you were out to change the way politics are played. Were we wrong?

Like Dr. King we are dreamers, but I never dreamed it would come to this – that we are leading you. Why is it not the other way around? Even crass politics requires you to LOOK like you are leading and putting up a good fight. Nobody faults a politician for acting like a general to his army of supporters.

I don’t mean a violent fight, of course, because we touted you as the first nonviolent president - at least one with some understanding of the nonviolent movement. I remind you, however, that we practiced nonviolent DIRECT ACTION. There was nothing passive about it.

You are disappointing us, Sir, and I don’t mean the ones who gave up on you early, just waiting for an excuse to leave. We stayed when you escalated an unwinnable war claiming young lives to prop up Karzai and his criminal “family.” We stuck when you gave up public option prior to negotiations on health care. We swallowed hard when you didn’t close Guantanamo and failed to advocate strongly for repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell. We are the millions of long suffering supporters like the lady at town meeting who said she was exhausted defending you.

Do you intend to rain on this parade? Boy scout training teaches that a drip can kill a spark but a deluge cannot douse a conflagration. We hope you are not the drip putting out our spark. Remember HOPE?

As our champion confronting the giant, did you forget to pick up some rocks, maybe left your slingshot at home? Nonviolence is good, but this is ridiculous! In the movement we turn the other cheek, but we don’t ray our principles.

Even Jesus, the Prince of Peace, got mad. He believed in direct action. When he plaited a whip - look out scribes and Pharacese! And for God’s sake don’t be changing no money over at the temple!

Has politics become so cynical that a fighting spirit in defense of principles no longer plays well? It would be great for your base, and might even gain the respect of Independents and some moderate Republicans. As a radical, a progressive and an activist, I can’t help admiring heartless rightwing Republicans and crazy tea heads. They close ranks and fight for their cause. Tea partiers, to the small extend they are working class, should be organized by Democrats, not the lying right.

If Progressives don’t stand for something, will we stand for anything? You and your aids have given up on each political fight, even before taking the field. Unlike little David, your political advisor, Axelrod, went out to meet Goliar and Co. with his hands up. Weeks ago he said tax cut extensions for the richest 2% was on the table. We knew then that you were going to give it to them.

We can only imagine the confab he had with Tan Man and General McConnell.

Axelhead: Well fellas, what was it you unwashed, stinking, skin wearing barbarians wanted?

Boehner mumbles something about chicken crap.

Axelhead: Oh, uh, you want to extend tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? Well, uh, my president certainly wants to get along and not be overly partisan. We can probably, uh… work something out…. I’ll get back to you.

Well, Mr. President, we will stay tuned and see what you work out.

Sincerely,

Bob Zellner

50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here? Part Two by Ira Grupper

2010-11-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

Sisters & Brothers:

Justice delayed is justice denied. I was part of a group that looked over cases and then encouraged filing complaints with metro, state and federal agencies. We were dissatisfied with the long time between intake of a complaint and resolution, and with the eventual outcomes as well.

The problem is not individual, but structural, and political. The tasks of outreach, alternative dispute resolution and targeted case management are not accomplished when budget is limited and the big dogs, running in the tall grass, seem less than enamored of prosecuting potential political party donors?

Mediation and conciliation agreements, prized by federal, state and municipal enforcement bodies, objectively favor corporations and government agencies at the expense of complainants. The company or government agency just says: we ain’t done nothin' wrong, but we promise never to do it again. Further, we'll agree to make the aggrieved party, the complainant, whole, and we'll give back pay and promotion.

The Kafka-esque irony is that conciliation agreements are a joyous outcome for enforcement agencies, since there is not enough money and staff to litigate the complaint avalanch. Irony number two - the discriminated-against also view agreements as victories, having neither the money nor the years to wait while the processes lumber on.

I was at the 50th anniversary of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh NC this past April. As a SNCC veteran, I thought Attorney General Eric Holder, spoke eloquently about the Justice Department’s newfound energy in enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

Ironic isn’t it that on September 24 of this year the Department of Justice’s FBI component broke into seven homes and an office belonging to activists in the peace and justice community in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan? The eleven subpoenaed activists will have to testify before a federal grand jury — where they are not permitted to have a lawyer with them.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s I was involved, here in the U.S., in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. Using the logic of the recent raids, I could have been imprisoned way back then, under the support for terrorism laws. After all, Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were put on the terrorist list by then-President Ronald Reagan. Did that make me a terrorist?

Let’s return, specifically, to the KY Commission on Human Rights. Months ago at a conference on disability, organized by the Kentucky commission we tonight honor. I asked how many commissioners ever filed “commissioner’s complaints.” The commissioner with the longest tenure, I think it was eleven years, responded: “What is a commissioner’s complaint?”

I was shocked. Commissioners have the right, no, the duty, to file complaints, in their names, against offending companies and agencies. This disgusting dereliction of duty, from my experience, is no better or worse than at all the other agencies.

Some commissioners aren’t cognizant of the two roles commissions must play - enforcing the law, AND using their good offices to bring about an egalitarian climate. Commissioners and citizens must understand this. I teach at Bellarmine University, and students in one of my classes are here, in the audience. Why isn’t this audience packed with hundreds of students? Is it lack of funding that prevents federal, state and local agencies from going into the high schools and colleges to explain why we need enforcement agencies? What would Rev. Martin Luther King say about this?

To conclude: The historic work of the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to be better funded, and expanded…You now know that I am an unrepentant hellraiser. My motto is, and I have cleaned it up and made it gender-neutral: If you grab them around the neck, their hearts and minds will follow.

Four little girls were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 by racists who bombed the church where they were attending Sunday school. We must never forget their sacrifice, their martyrdom, and the supreme price paid by James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner, Medgar Evers, Viola Liuzzo, Herbert Lee, Vernon Dahmer-and so many more.

They, and hundreds of thousands of freedom fighters, over many years, are to be thanked for the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. We can pay homage to the precious collective memory of the fallen in battle by creating a climate where companies and agencies that discriminate don't just get slapped on the wrist, but get the living defecation knocked out of them.

Then, and only then, will fifty years of the KY Commission on Human Rights be the landmark we all shall cherish.

Thank you.

Ira Grupper

50 Years Later: Where Do We Go From Here?

2010-11-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

Part one of a two part guest blog from, Ira Grupper, my hell raising friend and comrade in the movement for forty years.

Sisters & Brothers:

Where the KY Commission on Human Rights needs to go depends on its past history, and how its work comports with the work of city and federal agencies.

The 1960s saw masses of African American people, with participation and solidarity of other minorities and decent white people, rise up and bring down enforced racial segregation, Jim Crow--apartheid made-in-the-USA. De jure discrimination and segregation, at long last, were outlawed.

This struggle was a war, producing casualties, with participants jailed, beaten, fired from jobs, and even murdered, forcing authorities to make certain concessions. Among these were a series of laws giving everyone, regardless of color, the right to vote, the use of public accommodations, and access to fair housing and employment.

The Movement inspired other so-called "protected classes," to demand justice. Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, women, the disabled, older people, lesbians and gays--were on the move. They had fought for dignity and rights all along, but the Movement provided inspiration and demonstrated what a cohesive militant people's force can accomplish. Federal, state and municipal enforcement agencies, like the KY Commission on Human Rights, were created as a response.

These agencies had to contend, in the 1960s, with a society wherein the rich profited by exploiting the poor — a society that kept Black and white people apart. White workers accepted their own exploitation by internalizing that, as badly off as they were, at least they weren't Black. Inheriting the detritus of the war on the poor and the non-white back then, the agencies had to develop rules and regulations to try to root out unfairness at the workplace, and otherwise.

Today, approaching 2011, have these government agencies succeeding in creating a climate where discriminators fear paying a high price for their actions? Sometimes, yes. Usually, no.

During the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan dismantled protections won during the Civil Rights Movement. He appointed Clarence Thomas to head the EEOC and do the dirty work of gutting enforcement, of destroying equal opportunity. Mr. Thomas was rewarded for his nefarious deeds by being appointed to the US Supreme Court.

How are things today? Marcelles Mayes, president of the Metro Disability Coalition here in Louisville, recently told me: “Even with passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so many disabled are unemployed or under-employed. For the severely disabled generally it’s 75%, and for the blind and visually disabled it is 91%”. As recession wreaks havoc on poor and working people, millions of Americans are further prevented by racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and anti-disabled bias from access to the workplace.

Where do unemployed teens wind up, to an alarming degree? They wind up in prison resulting in drastically rising incarceration rates with a devastating racial breakdown. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the KY Commission pushed for restoration of voting rights for ex-inmates as proof that the penal system has faith in its rehabilitation program?

TO BE CONTINUED: Read part two next week on Zellner Blog.

Thank you.
Ira Grupper: irag@iglou.com

The Calling

2010-11-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

As a veteran of the civil rights struggles of the 1960s I was honored and privileged to work, walk and go to jail with the bravest and most inspiring people our generation produced. It was a pivotal chapter in American history; whatever we thought we were doing and achieving, we did made a difference. We were front line troops, (mostly) young women and men putting our own bodies on the line to break the back of deep discrimination and injustice. Some made the ultimate sacrifice, their blood watering roots of freedom’s tree marking the beginning of a new kind of life for all Americans.

Young people ask if the Freedom Movement really changed things in a basic way because schools teach only the most rudimentary information. It’s hard to remember or learn how bad things were. Without our struggle, the reinvigorated women’s’ movement, gay rights, laws against age and disability discrimination would not have arrived when they did.

This important history is passed along through stories of that wonderful era. But the stories are supposed to inspire, not put us to sleep fifty years later. Rocking chair congratulations can come later. Alone among the major civil rights organization of the sixties, the NAACP continues to flourish and function. SNCC, CORE, SCLC and the Urban League are extinct or quiet. Every activist in every field should be a paid up member of the NAACP. There’s still work to be done!

Help me deliver this blog to Americans of good sense and heart, especially young Americans. Please know that just as I and my sisters and brothers in struggle felt called to ACT, that calling is sounding for you today. Rosa Parks once challenged me, “Bob when you see something wrong, you have to dosomething. You must take action.”

For young Americans, new chapters of these stories continue to play out: poor people are excluded, as are gays, the disabled, young people and people of color. As Dr. Maya Angelou, supporting the Spike Lee, Barry Brown movie, Son of the South, from my book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, said, “This film should be made because hate is once again becoming an acceptable form of public discourse.”

Decisions affecting humans and our planet are made for the profit of a few while harming the many. Education policy and practice, meant to lift us up, funnels people into becoming sleepy consumers of culture and products, leaving us stripped and empty. Seventy percent of our economy depends on rampant consumerism funded mostly by credit. We don’t make things anymore, shipping jobs to poor non-unionized workers around the world.

It’s time. It’s more than time. In fact, it’s getting very late. Join me in exploring not just the great stories of the past, but finding the opportunities to write some new stories that are desperately needed today. Stories of hope, courage, imagination and struggle. That same call that moved us back in the day still resounds today. Can you hear it? Will you heed it?

Bob Zellner

November 1, 2010

Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod, and Bob Zellner

2010-10-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Zellner Blog readers,

Recently when Dr. Maya Angelou and I hosted Shirley Sherrod as guest of honor at a party in Dr. Angelou’s Harlem, home I mentioned the mistake Benjamin Jealous made in criticizing Ms Sherrod without having all the facts. Maya admonished me at the time and I now apologize. The following message to me from Shirley and the NAACP was mailed to all members. As a member of the Eastern Long Island Branch I am forwarding Ms Sherrod’s healing message to my Zellner Blog readers. Please pass it on to help bridge the black-white racial divide. BZ

Bob Zellner,

Back in March, I delivered a speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in my home state of Georgia. I drew on my personal life story to urge poor people, white and black, to pull together and overcome racial divisions. We have to understand that our struggle is against poverty and against those who are blocking our path out of poverty. Unless we figure this out, I warned, our communities won't thrive and our children won't prosper.

As you know, a Tea Party blogger named Andrew Breitbart released an intentionally deceptive, heavily edited clip from that speech to make it look as if I was delivering exactly the opposite message. Then Fox News blasted that false message across America's airwaves, creating a firestorm that led to my ouster as the USDA State Director here in Georgia.

Not long ago, I sat here in my living room in Albany, Georgia for an afternoon of deep conversation with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. As he has done in public, Ben movingly apologized for the fact that the NAACP was initially hoodwinked by Breitbart and Fox into supporting my removal. I told him what I want to tell you. That’s behind us, and the last thing I want to see happen is for my situation to weaken support for the NAACP.

Too many people confronted by racism and poverty count on the NAACP to be there for them, especially those in rural areas who often have nowhere else to turn. People ask me, "Shirley, how are you getting through all of this? " I tell them that, if they knew what I have lived through, they'd understand that these current challenges aren't about to throw me off course.

When I was 17 years old, my father was murdered by a white man in Baker County, Georgia. There were three witnesses, but the grand jury refused to indict the person responsible. I knew I had to do something in answer to my father's death. That very night, I made a commitment that I would stay in the South and fight for change. I have lived true to that commitment for 45 years. I didn't yield when, just months after my father was killed, they came in the middle of the night to burn a cross in front of our house with my mother, four sisters, and the baby brother my father never got to see still inside. I'm surely not going to yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out.

I learned a lot of lessons from my parents growing up, but one of the most important ones is what my mother taught her children after our father was killed. She told us we mustn't try to live with hate in our hearts. My mother led by example. Just 11 years after that cross-burning incident, she became the first black elected official in Baker County, and she's still serving, still working to bring people together.

You and I have to keep working as well. Change has to start with us. I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support I have received over these last few weeks. It means so much to me and my family. But you and I have to make sure that people all across the country who wage a daily struggle against poverty and racism have support networks as well. And that's why your personal involvement in sustaining the NAACP is so critical. The NAACP confronts the virulent racism that my family and so many other families have had to endure. But it is also leading the way in breaking down the structural barriers that block so many people's paths out of poverty.

In our struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots," they want to keep the poor divided - and we have to insist, by our words and our actions, that there is no difference between us. As we move forward together, I urge you to remember this: Life is a grindstone. But whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us. Thank you for all you are doing to challenge poverty and racism. I look forward to working and struggling right by your side.  

Sincerely,

Shirley Sherrod

Son of South. The Fight for Racial Equality…Dr. MAYA ANGELOU WANTS THIS FILM TO GET MADE.

2010-10-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

Photography by Verane Pick

Dr. MAYA ANGELOU WANTS THIS FILM TO GET MADE.
A movie should nourish you a little beyond its popcorn intake. In the stellar fundraiser at Dr. Maya Angelou’s Harlem home, Shirley Sherrod and Dr. Bob Zellner join spirits for the Civil Rights Film “Son of the South”.

Sunday night saw a merry and emotional evening of celebration and support for the upcoming production of the feature film, “Son of South”. The picture is based on Bob Zellner’s recently acclaimed memoir, “The wrong side of murder creek”, a spirited and emotional account of a life devoted to the Civil Rights Movement.

Shirley Sherrod and David Goodman

“I won’t be misused, overused or abused, but for what I believe is right, I will be of use.” states the ever-graceful Dr. Maya Angelou in the joyful colors that graces her living room. “In an era of such strong polarization, where hate is again being accepted as a tolerable response to our fellow human beings, this story needs to be told, this story needs to be heard.”

Director Barry Alexander Brown and Willy E. Woods

Dr. Maya Angelou Supports Spike Lee & Barry Brown's Movie about Bob Zellner: Son of the South

2010-10-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod support Zellner’s Wrong Side of Murder Creek movie project
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 by Brian

Dr. Maya Angelou expressed her support for the new movie Son of the South — based on Bob Zellner’s memoir The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement — with a fundraising party at her home October 3. In attendance were Zellner, Son of the South director Barry Alexander Brown, and a host of civil rights figures including former US Department of Agriculture staffer Shirley Sherrod.

Dr. Maya Angelou, Shirley Sherrod, and Bob Zellner together in support of the Son of the South movie

Verane Pick described the event in an article on the Scallywag & Vagabond website. (Event photographs by Pick.)

Son of the South, with executive producer Spike Lee, will bring to the big screen the events Zellner describes in The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. In the book, Zellner chronicles a lifetime of civil rights activism, from his childhood as the son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including his imprisonment for desegregation work and his meetings with Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and others.

At the Son of the South event, Dr. Angelou told Pick that “in an era of such strong polarization, where hate is again being accepted as a tolerable response to our fellow human beings, [Bob Zellner's] story needs to be told, this story needs to be heard.”

Zellner himself described the story he tells as “not about who wins and who loses, who’s strong or who’s weak, [but rather] about standing up for what you know is right. And if you really look, you’re bound to see it: true courage isn’t measured by your fists, your tanks, or your ability to overpower your enemy, it lies in compassion, forgiveness, benevolence . . . and the joy it sprouts within.”

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek received the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award presented by the Southern Regional Council. Library Journal gave The Wrong Side of Murder Creek a starred review, noting that “this powerful portrait of a courageous man is highly recommended”; Publishers Weekly called the book “a testament both to the courage of civil rights activists and to the hatred they overcame.”

The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, by Bob Zellner with Constance Curry, is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon, or your favorite local or online book retailer.

Letter to Glenn Beck at Fox News

2010-08-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck
Fox News

Dear Mr. Beck,

      Your fantasy #1 is that, “We (meaning your rightwing crowd of nuts) made the civil rights movement and we can take it back.” Welcome to the real world, Glenn!   May I call you Glenn? Your 1960 counterparts were in fact the main opposition to Dr. King, SNCC and the Freedom Movement.

      Mr. Beck, I suspect that you know better. You’re telling a huge lie, because your willfully ignorant, know-nothing, sheep-like followers might not believe a lesser lie. You fancy yourself a historian. Have you ever heard of Massive Resistance? What exactly do you think your God Father, (Governor George Corley Wallace of Alabama - the cradle of the confederacy) was resisting? He was resisting the Civil Rights Movement? Yes?

      If you are such a smart historian, standing ready to assume Martin Luther King’s mantel of civil rights leadership, tell me about the famous Southern Strategy of your hero, President Ronald Reagan. Why do you think the Solid South switched overnight from Democrat to Republican? Was it because Republicans, like their best president, Lincoln, supported freedom for black people? No, Glenn, it was because Reagan opened his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Neshoba County, Mississippi, where the three civil rights organizers were murdered during Freedom Summer, 1964. Candidate Reagon famously talked about “states rights,” code for allowing the South to maintain segregation by all means necessary.

      This was a wink, wink, and meaningful signal to segregationists. Republicans realized they no longer had to shout “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” like their teachers, George Wallace and Ross Barnet, not to mention Bull Connor and killers like Byron De Lay Beckwith and James Earl Ray.

      The Southern Strategy worked, Glenn, because your ideological brothers, whom you claim were “making the civil rights movement,” convinced white southerners that Republicans would be “reliable” on civil rights. Your Tea Party, and your unmitigated hubris in standing in the footprints of Dr. King will not work. I knew and worked with Dr. King. You, Mr. Beck, are no Martin Luther King.

      Your big lie is designed to convince white working people, north and south, that they are better off shelving their economic interest in exchange for Republican support for a conservative social agenda, like opposition to affirmative action and freedom of choice.

      Glenn, as a thirty-million dollar per year big shot TV personality, isn’t your real allegiance to the wealthy two percent in our country who are paid $300,000 a year or more? You yourself must be making over ten times that amount.

      Why don’t you fess up and come clean with your followers that you are leading them down the garden path? What a pretty way to state that you want to keep them ignorant and poor.

      So, Mr. Beck, your fantasy that you can become the civil rights leader without ever having supported civil rights, or doing anything at all to secure those rights, is a personal affront not only to me, but also to hundreds of thousands who bled and suffered to make the movement a success over the last four hundred years in this country.

      Talk about sensitivity concerning the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan. Where is your sensitivity when you claim something that in no way belongs to you? This is personal with me because I know, as a white male southerner, that it is my responsibility to oppose racism, sexism and religious persecution in all its forms.

      To this end, I was arrested over 18 times in seven states standing up for justice and human rights. I am careful not to claim any credit for the success of the freedom movement because I know it was lead by women and men of color all over this country, primarily in the South. The people in the communities and martyred leaders, both men and women, were the ones who made the civil rights movement, not me and certainly not you and your political ilk.

      Finally, Big Shot Beck, are you aware of how ridiculous you looked strutting up and down on that historical stage? Will your silver tongue be able to explain to your followers your second big fantasy?

      For the life of me I don’t know why the Democrats are not talking twenty-four hours a day about your biggest fantasy – that the way to help General Petraeus win the hearts and minds of the Afghans is to bash Muslims for trying to build a church near Wall Street? Beck, does this actually help win the war? No. Frank Rich laid it out clearly in his New York Times opinion piece, so that even Democrats could understand.

      Let me get this straight. You and your millions are the last American holdouts supporting the war in Afghanistan (other than our Muslim President, Obama), and yet you are the same megalomaniacs declaring world war on Islam? You don’t want to fight the small numbers of fringe Muslims, the tiny minority embracing terrorism. You really think it is better to hate and war against ALL Muslims all over the world- even those in Texas and Murfreesboro, Tennessee?

      As Imus used to say, and Joe Scarborough is now saying, - Glenn Beck, ARE YOU NUTS?

Sincerely,
Bob Zellner

This is Zellner Blog #1 With What's Happening Now.

2010-08-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Half a century ago, this country approached a crossroads- a decision was to be made nationally, whether to continue legal apartheid, or complete the job of emancipation begun under our greatest President, Republican Abraham Lincoln. Our country has now reached a second major crossroads. We must decide whether or not to become a responsible member of global society, or intensify the emergent Know-Nothingism and neo-Fascism implicit in the program of the extreme right.

In the spring of 2007, I began a series of National Public Radio commentaries focused on the Obama campaign. This Zellner Blog will address current issues of racial and social justice by occasionally reprinting these commentaries written early in the Obama administration, as well as releasing new commentaries on the current situation. I will be focusing on contrasting the hopes and dreams of the early Obama phenomenon, with the progress and setbacks facing us today.