Activist knows risks of fighting to be free

As Bob Zellner clung to a bloodied courthouse railing, fending off a police officer who was trying to squeeze out his eyeball with his thumb and forefinger, the young civil rights activist remembers thinking, "These people are overreacting."

Dr. Zellner, whose father and grandfather were members of the Ku Klux Klan, has been arrested 18 times, beaten, tortured and imprisoned while standing up for the rights of black people.

But as a white, southern Alabama native, Dr. Zellner said that, since the 1950s, he has been fighting for everyone's rights.

"When anybody's rights are curtailed, all of our rights are curtailed," he said. "I didn't come to help the black people, I came to help myself. I was not free. I had to fight for the freedom of the South."

MEETING M.L. KINGBob Zellner first met Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks at a church in Montgomery, Ala. As research for a college sociology paper, Dr. Zellner attended a civil rights meeting that Dr. King was holding. Dr. King warned Dr. Zellner that he and his college friends likely would be arrested for attending, and he was right. After trying to escape from the church, which was surrounded by police, Dr. Zellner was taken by authorities and severely beaten.

Dr. Zellner, 70, came Monday to talk with students at Baylor School during their 16th annual "MLK Day On" celebration. He said he hoped that after listening to his stories students got a sense of the excitement and the passion that surrounded the civil rights movement.

"I would like for them to take a risk for something they believe in," he said after his talk.

As students filed into the school's fieldhouse Monday morning, senior Lauren Williams found Dr. Zellner sitting alone on the front row. She took her personal copy of his book, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek" and sat down for a chat and an autograph.

"It's kind of like meeting a celebrity," said the 17-year-old native of Jamaica. "It was a different perspective. You don't hear much about white activists."

Most of Dr. Zellner's talk Monday was filled with stories of his involvement in the civil rights movement. He told of visiting Rock City with a group of black students from the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn. Once word got out of their visit, the group was met on the way home by Klansmen who threw rocks and bottles at their car as they drove by.

He also told of how Huntingdon College officials in Montgomery, Ala., asked him to leave the school because he'd broken the city's segregation law by attending a meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.

"The Klan burned crosses around our dorm room that night," he said.

Baylor senior Mary Stagmaier said that, after listening to Dr. Zellner, she was excited to see the planned 2011 Spike Lee film that will be based on his memoir. When asked what she took away from the speech, she mentioned the theme of a conversation Dr. Zellner had with Mrs. Parks.

"If you see something that you need to change, go out and do it," she said. "And that's part of the Baylor mission, too."

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