Julian Bond Laid to Rest

Julian Bond was laid to rest on Saturday, August 22, 2015. His show of determination and commitment to justice is why we will hold fast to Julian Bond’s memory.
Horace Julian Bond, generally known as Julian Bond, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on January 14, 1940. His family moved to Pennsylvania five years later, where his father served as the first African-American president of Lincoln University. In 1957, Bond enrolled at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, where he helped found The Pegasus, a literary magazine, and interned at TIME magazine.

While still a student, Bond became a founding member of the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights. He led nonviolent student protests against segregation in Atlanta parks, restaurants and movie theaters. In Raleigh, North Carolina, Bond helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960. The next year, he left Morehouse to serve as the SNCC’s communications director, a position he held for five years. He returned to Morehouse a decade later and received a degree in English.

In 1966, when Julian Bond should have been sworn in as a state representative, his white colleagues in the Georgia General Assembly barred him from taking his seat because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King Jr. organized a protest rally on Bond’s behalf, and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled in Bond’s favor on the basis of freedom of speech.When a reporter asked him to explain his previous statements on the war, Bond said, “It is hypocritical for us to maintain that we are fighting for liberty in other places, and we are not guaranteeing liberty to citizens inside the continental United States.”
Bond attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he was nominated as a vice-presidential candidate. He was the first African American to receive the honor, but withdrew his name because he was not old enough to hold the office according to constitutional guidelines.

From 1971 to 1979, Bond served as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization he also co-founded. He was president of Atlanta’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People before becoming the chairman of the national NAACP, a position he held from 1998 until 2010. Bond was elected as chairman emeritus of the NAACP, and president emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Julian Bond held a prominent voice in the media. He was a commentator for NBC’s Today show, wrote a national newspaper column and produced poems that have appeared publications such as the Nation and the New York Times. He was also a professor of history at the University of Virginia, and an adjunct professor at American University.

Julian Bond’s reach extended far beyond his own generation’s advocacy for civil rights and continues to motivate people to work and amplify the voices of Black people. Congressman John Lewis said in a recent interview about his late colleague and friend, “Julian must be remembered as one who inspired another generation of people to stand up, to speak up and speak out.” We are part of the legacy he inspired to fight racism and oppression.