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The GB Weekly - 31 May 2024

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Friday 31 May 2024

Still fighting for civil rights

Civil rights activists, Pamela Smith and her husband Bob Zellner, from the USA. Photo: Ronnie Short. RONNIE SHORT

When Theron Burgess’ mother and stepfather visited Golden Bay recently, The GB Weekly jumped at his invitation to interview the “legends”. Bob Zellner and Pamela Smith are civil rights activists from the United States of America. Renowned for his work as a “freedom rider”, Bob wrote the story of his life, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek (published in 2011), which inspired the 2020 movie, Son of the South. “Growing up in Alabama in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s as a white person,” explained Bob, “meant you were pretty much automatically a member of the clan.”The Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Bob’s father James (a Methodist preacher) and grandfather were clan members. In the 1930s, James travelled Europe to convert Jews, “so the fascists wouldn’t execute

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them”. However, during a winter travelling via horse-drawn sled throughout the Soviet Union, he met and became friends with American gospel singers from Georgia, “who happened to be black”. James came to realise the absurdity of racial division. Upon returning to Alabama, he threw in his KKK membership, much to his indigenous wife’s relief. The fallout was that they became ostracised by their community. “If you left the KKK it was a death sentence. They were supposed to kill you then,” said Bob. In his turn, Bob took up the cause whilst at high school in Mobile, Alabama, after a black student enrolled at Alabama University, “and all people were disturbed because this young black woman was going to ruin the University of Alabama”. In 1961, Bob became the first white field secretary of the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a position he held for several years until it became a Blacks-only association. Over the years, Bob has stood with Martin Luther King and others, and he rode the freedom bus with Rosa Parks. He has taken part in protests and demonstrations, received numerous beatings from armed forces, been thrown in jail many times, and faced a potential hanging. “I was completely convinced they would [hang me] but I just kept talking...A very courageous black lawyer from Mississippi paid the bail and took me up to Jackson. He saved my life.” Several of Bob’s comrades during those early years “were lynched, but no-one ever served any time for it...the last one was in 1985 in Mobile”. Continued on page 3

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GB Special Projects JO RICHARDS

The Golden Bay Community Board (GBCB) has money to distribute to local “special” projects and is inviting the community to have its say on how the funds are allocated. The total amount in Golden Bay’s Special Projects budget is around $38,000, which can be used to support any or all of the seven projects shortlisted by the board: • Christmas decorations for Commercial Street and Tasman Street • A “Welcome to Golden Bay/Mohua” sign • Fu n d i n g t o w a r d s t h e Pā k a w a u playground • Funding towards a tunnel house for the hanging baskets • R e p l a c i n g t h e fe n c i n g o u t s i d e Dangerous Kitchen on Commercial Street • Upgrading the existing CCTV network • Contributing funding to the Rockville community pool The distribution of funds will be guided by the Golden Bay community, who are being encouraged to provide feedback, ranking the projects from one to seven (with one being the most preferred). Not all projects need to be given a score, however; respondents can rank as many or as few of the seven as they wish. Feedback can be submitted by completing a hard copy form and delivering/posting it to Tasman District Council’s (TDC) Golden Bay Service Centre, or by going online to the Shape Tasman webpage. More details are provided in the advert on page 5 of this issue. Depending on the public feedback, the available funds may be allocated to one or more of the listed projects. A final decision will be made by GBCB at its next scheduled meeting on 1 July. GBCB chair Abbie Langford says the board will be very grateful for public feedback on the projects. “We really appreciate people taking the time to help us distribute the funds. It’s the community’s money not the board’s.” Feedback closes on Sunday 16 June.

Better Off Funding The Government’s edict regarding the reassignment of Better Off Funding (BOF) has left councils across the country unable to start and/or complete projects previously funded under the scheme. BOF was associated with the nowdefunct Three Waters programme, which the new government scrapped to make... Continued on page 2

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Inside: Workcentre refresh Farm research Gardening tips Fed Farmers Li-ion safety THE GB WEEKLY, FRIDAY 31 MAY 2024

S c h e d u l e d • S c e n i c • C h a rt e r ISSN (PRINT) 2538-0923 ISSN (ONLINE) 2538-0931

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