Zellner, Bob, 1939-

John Robert Zellner (born April 5, 1939) is an American civil rights activist. He graduated from Huntingdon College in 1961 and that year became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as its first white field secretary. Zellner was involved in numerous civil rights efforts, including nonviolence workshops at Talladega College, protests for integration in Danville, Virginia, and organizing Freedom Schools in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1964. He also investigated the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner that summer.

Zellner was arrested and severely beaten for his activism several times. He left SNCC in 1966 but continued his civil rights activism. He later taught the history of the civil rights movement at Long Island University and published a memoir of his activism that was adapted into the 2020 film Son of the South, with Lucas Till portraying him. Zellner was arrested as recently as 2013, for protesting a North Carolina voter ID law. John Robert Zellner was born to James Abraham Zellner and Ruby Hardy Zellner on April 5, 1939, in Jay, Florida Through his meetings over civil rights Zellner had been introduced to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student-led civil rights organization. He was contacted by Anne Braden and soon hired to "conduct outreach to whites",[5] becoming a formal volunteer on September 11, 1961.[6] He was SNCC's first and, for the first year he worked, only white field secretary. From 1991 to 1993 he worked to earn a PhD from Tulane University in history, writing a dissertation on the civil rights movement. That year he was hired to teach about the civil rights movement at Long Island University.[21][1] Zellner published Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement in 2008.[6] After moving to Wilson, North Carolina, Zellner was arrested in 2013 protesting a North Carolina voter ID law.[5] Zellner has been married twice, first to Dorothy Zellner (from August 9, 1963) and later to Linda Miller.[1][8]