Zev Aelony
1936-2009
Life
Zev Aelony was born on February 21st, 1938 in Palo Alto, California. His parent’s names were Janet and David Aelony. Zev grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota in a Jewish household. He went to highschool at University High School and went to college at the University of Minnesota. He had a spouse and four kids. His kids names were Bjorn, Ephraim, Phill, and Jared. He and his wife were married for 43 years before Zev died of Metastatic Colon Cancer in 2009.
Civil Rights Movement
In 1960 Zev was 23 years old and he decided to join the Civil Rights Movement even though he was a white man. Zev was an organizer of Minnesota’s Students for Integration. Then he saw that the the freedom rides needed more freedom riders. Zev decided to join the freedom rides. Freedom rides are when white people and black people would ride together on a Greyhound bus and ride across the south. That was illegal in 1960. He was arrested but when he got out of jail, he became a CORE Soul Force member and defended black people from racist white people.