Bridgehampton: A Place In History

"History involves a lot of ordinary people," Bob Zellner told the Bridgehampton students who heard him on Friday recount his unlikely role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

The son of a Methodist minister and former member of the Ku Klux Klan, Mr. Zellner's life changed when, as a senior at Huntington College in Montgomery, Ala., he was assigned to study "the race issue" in a sociology class.

He and four classmates, as part of their project, decided to meet with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Integrated meetings were against the law, and by the time the gathering at Dr. King's church broke up, police were waiting outside.

Asked To Leave

The students told Dr. King, "We're ready to be arrested. We're ready to go to jail," Mr. Zellner recalled. "But we think we owe it to our parents and our college to try to escape."

Dr. King provided cover by leaving from the front door, while his associate, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, led the five students to safety out the rear.

The triumph was short-lived, however. Before the students returned to their campus, the police had called the college president.

"The five of us, because we went to church with Martin Luther King, were asked to resign from our college."

The Klan soon paid a visit and left burning crosses outside the students' dormitory.

Despite being ostracized and threatened by fellow students, Mr. Zellner decided to make the ending of segregation his life's work. He became one of the first white members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

His journey soon took him to Macomb, Miss., where he took part in a protest march and was beaten and nearly hanged.

Having his life threatened and spending time in jail would become commonplace. By his own count, Mr. Zellner was arrested 25 times in five different states during the '60s.

"Acts Of War"

He was once charged under the "John Brown statute" in Virginia "for inciting the black population to acts of war against the white population," which, had he been convicted, could have resulted in a death sentence.

"I had to make the decision time and time again to give up my life," he told the Bridgehampton students.

Once, he admitted, he offered to put "nonviolence aside" when confronted by a group of students at Huntington College. "I'll take you on one at a time," he told his tormenters. He had no takers.

"In a mob, you can get together and beat someone to death," he said. "But most members of a mob - and members of the Klan - are really cowards."

Despite his family's involvement in the Klan, Mr. Zellner said his parents gave him a proper upbringing. "I believed in the Bible," he said. "I believed what I was taught in school, that we live in a democracy."

His family also had the strength to change. Before Mr. Zellner became an activist, his father had quit the Klan - "My mother cut up his Klan robes and made shirts for us" - and softened, and eventually abandoned, his segregationist stance.

But Mr. Zellner's grandfather and many of his uncles were still members. "They thought I disgraced the whole family," he said.

"Four Little Girls"

The family's ties to the Klan filled Mr. Zellner with a deep sense of guilt in 1963, he said, when four black children attending Sunday school were killed in the bombing of their church. "I had a feeling some of my kin knew the people who put the dynamite under those stairs," he said.

The church bombing has been back in the spotlight of late with the release of Spike Lee's documentary "Four Little Girls." Mr. Zellner has spent much of his time participating in panel discussions at openings of the film in various cities.

"History is not that long ago," he told the students. "It took place 35 years ago, when I was 21 and right out of college."

Commitment

"Every person made an individual decision to get involved," said Mr. Zellner, an Alabama native who now lives in North Sea and is a founder of the National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee. "I would never have amounted to anything if I had not made that commitment."

Mr. Zellner spoke at the school as a guest of the Parent Teacher Organization on the last day of Black History Month. He met with grade school students in the morning and high school students in the afternoon, with each session running well overtime as he fielded questions.

While many battles have been won, Mr. Zellner told students discrimination against blacks, other minorities, and women continue.

"Stand up for what's right," he urged his young audience.