ACHIEVING AN
EQUITABLE ESCAMBIA

Across their lifespan, Black residents in Escambia County face systemic racism and disadvantages that disproportionately impact their physical, mental, and social health, as well as the educational and economic opportunities afforded to Black families and communities of color.

HOW CAN WE CREATE A MORE EQUITABLE ESCAMBIA WHERE EVERYONE CAN LIVE WELL AND THRIVE?

COMMUNITY EVENT SPOTLIGHT

During our most recent public event, Zellner recalled the victories, struggles & heartbreaks he experienced firsthand as an active civil rights leader in the 1960s.

The Equity Project Alliance was honored to welcome Bob Zellner, an active leader in the Civil Rights Movement from the 1960s to today. The son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, he risked his life – and nearly lost it – many times in the fight to achieve The Second Emancipation.

As an organizer of The Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he worked alongside Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Rosa Parks, Diane Nash, Julian Bond, Fannie Lou Hamer, and many other civil rights leaders.

Famous for battles with the KKK, segregationist lynch mobs, and violent police, he is now one of the key individuals that a new generation turns to with questions on the racial, historical, and cultural assumptions on which they were raised, as they ask themselves, “What is my place in this struggle?”

FILM SYNOPSIS

In this true story set during the sixties Civil Rights Movement, a Klansman’s grandson is forced to face the rampant racism of his own culture. Defying his family and white Southern norms, he embraces the fight against social injustice, repression and violence to change the world he was born into.

“This is an honest and inspiring account of what it takes to do the right thing.” — Ellen Wanjiru (Black Film)