As much as the world likes to believe progress has been made in the equality of human rights, last summer’s Black Lives Matter movement illustrated that clearly, there is still much to be done. As often as we are told to learn from history sadly, we witness too many times history repeating itself. In the new film Son of the South, one such historical event is examined. We are taken back to Alabama in the early 1960s and introduced to Bob Zellner (Lucas Till), an idealistic college student who steps forward to become an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, specifically with the Freedom Riders. Weaving in such monumental figures in the crusade as Rev. Ralph David Abernathy (Cedric the Entertainer), Rosa Parks (Sharonne Lanier), and John Lewis (Dexter Darden), Zellner begins to become more engaged in the injustice. When he meets Joanne (Lex Scott Davis), a volunteer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, his affection for her begins to jeopardize not only their lives but their involvement in the cause as well. We spoke to Lucas Till about the film.

Bob Zellner is not a typical name on people’s radar about the Civil Rights Movement. How important of a voice was he?

 I love the way you said that, because yes you are right, we never heard of him before, but gosh, that’s a terrible way to say it, but in the context of the civil rights movement where you go and are like oh wait a second, I thought it was African-Americans doing this.  It is also we can help when we should.  And there’s a right way to do it certainly and knowing that you are helping them with something that is their struggle but it also yours at the same time, but by helping without getting in the way of thinking about you know how to do something like that. I think it is nice to see this guy get involved with this struggle that is another person but inextricably linked to him as well.

As we sadly witnessed last summer, some things just haven’t changed. Going through this experience of making the film, what insight did it give you about your own personal responsibility in helping make a change?

It’s a huge responsibility, especially as actors being able to be, given the opportunity to tell this type of story and for it to come out right now for our generation. We have to be very delicate with the story and sensitive to the people like my grandparents, who really had to go through this, and people like Bob Zellner, who can tell his story himself.  I am shocked that history has repeated itself like you said this past Summer and these are things that have always happened. I think because of our phones and our technology, we just now have a greater awareness of it.  But like Bob Zellner, I think it is going to really be key for white audiences to see this film because what it does is show the impact of what it is when you have their voice involved in this type of movement.  It’s not enough to just have black and brown voices to try and fight for themselves, unfortunately, but that is the truth. It does take our white colleagues and family and friends to really understand that it takes everyone to have change, you have to be the change you want to see.

One of the biggest take-aways for me was witnessing the nonviolence of the participants. We are taught to fight back in the face of adversity and yet these people reacted with passivity. Could either of you hold up like that? Do you have a threshold?

That is part of the reason that it frustrates me.  Violence is the first thing, (laughs) I get angry, very angry.  But when you look at it from a strategic perspective, it’s unstoppable. Because what happens is, look at what happened recently, when you have people who are getting pushed, they push back, but you don’t know who started it. If you put it on the news, it could look like the cops are trying to defend themselves, you don’t realize who started it, who shouldn’t be doing something in the first place.  When you have footage of people going in and stopping and not doing anything, you can’t air that footage, but someone will air that footage, and then everyone else is going to be like what are you doing, you are doing this to people that aren’t even fighting back.  Then it raises the question of why are they doing this and then you get to dig deeper into stuff like that and don’t want to hurt the other people and it will mess you up, it will mess someone up to have to beat someone who is not fighting back.  It’s a psychological game, it’s from a strategic perspective and it is superior.  And on the side of the oppressed, I think it what makes it really difficult too, because you want to stand up for yourself and defend yourself if someone is being disrespectful towards you. You do what you think is right and not have a violent reaction and you still might suffer from them reacting as if you did have a reaction.  More often than not, there’s a loser situation for the oppressed and that’s the part that is really, which makes this a really tricky question because in the inside, there’s one conversation, but on the outside, what do I have to do to protect myself and to survive this altercation?  I know either way I look at it, it might end up bad for someone who looks like me or someone who looks like my husband.  And that’s the reality of where we are in this country and it’s really unfortunate.  But what I did see is more unity and that is a silver lining of this entire thing, like 2020, was that it brought out more people to stand up for just right and wrong, just bottom line right and wrong.  There is hope at the end of this, there is.

As we see in the film, as progressive as we might be, we have family and friends that are still way behind the curve. How do you personally navigate through that?

I think you just have to educate them. I mean you know that it’s of a different generation and it’s something that they might not understand because things are way more sensitive now, even beyond race, there are just things that you can say anymore that aren’t politically correct.  So, you just kind of have to be patient with our elders specifically, like hey, we can’t say that anymore. You just have to educate them a little bit because they can’t help it. I think something that was normal for them, how do you expect it to be different in their later years, because they already are who they are and there’s no changing that, you can only just hope that they understand that we are in a different climate right now.

In being taken back to the 1960s, how easily did you adapt to the culture of that time?

We were shooting on those locations where those things actually happened, not even a block away, where they happened, most of the time.  So, everything added to really feeling like you were there, which helped, and was important to do that for this movie.

How would MacGyver navigate it?

 (laughs) Yeah, that’s funny you say that because now my mind is spinning with engineering options.  (laughs)