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Dorothy Miller Zellner

b. 1938

by JWA Staff
Our work to expand the Encyclopedia is ongoing. We are providing this brief biography for Dorothy Miller Zellner until we are able to commission a full entry.

Activist Dorothy "Dottie" Miller (Zellner), who lost her shoes to high-pressure hoses after being clubbed during a demonstration in Danville, Virginia, gives an affidavit to James Forman, SNCC executive secretary.
Magnum Photos, Inc. c1963 Danny Lyons.

As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization’s message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media. Zellner was arrested at a CORE demonstration in Miami in 1960 and participated in sit-ins in New Orleans before joining Julian Bond as co-editor of the Student Voice, which built community among SNCC’s widely dispersed field workers. She also became SNCC’s media relations person, helping generate support for the organization and bring it to national attention. She handled fundraising and helped screen volunteers for Freedom Summer. Zellner worked as a nurse for several years before joining the Center for Constitutional Rights in 1984. In 1998, she became director of publications and development for the Queens College School of Law. She lectures and writes frequently about the civil rights movement and co-edited Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. As of 2024, she is involved in advocacy work on behalf of Palestinians, fighting for the liberation of a people she sees as living in similar conditions to those she saw in the segregated American south in the 1950s. During the war that erupted in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, she has been very active in the calls for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and an end to occupation in the West Bank. 

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Dorothy Miller Zellner." (Viewed on December 25, 2024) <https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/zellner-dorothy>.