Julian Bond | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Bond in 2000 | |
| Chair of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People | |
| In office 1998–2010 | |
| Preceded by | Myrlie Evers-Williams |
| Succeeded by | Roslyn Brock |
| Member of theGeorgia State Senate from the 39th district | |
| In office January 13, 1975 – January 12, 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Horace Ward |
| Succeeded by | Hildred Shumake |
| Member of theGeorgia House of Representatives | |
| In office January 9, 1967 – January 13, 1975 | |
| Succeeded by | Mildred Glover |
| Constituency | 136th district (1967–1969) 111th district (1969–1973) 32nd district (1973–1975) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Horace Julian Bond (1940-01-14)January 14, 1940 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | August 15, 2015(2015-08-15) (aged 75) Fort Walton Beach, Florida, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Other political affiliations | Democratic Socialists of America |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 5 |
| Education | Morehouse College (BA) |
Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of thecivil rights movement, politician,professor, andwriter. While he was a student atMorehouse College inAtlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped establish theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1971, he co-founded theSouthern Poverty Law Center inMontgomery, Alabama, and served as its first president for nearly a decade.
Bond was elected to serve four terms in theGeorgia House of Representatives and later he was elected to serve six terms in theGeorgia State Senate, serving a total of twenty years in both legislative chambers. Following his career in the legislature, he was a professor of history at theUniversity of Virginia from 1990 to 2012. From 1998 to 2010, he was chairman of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Bond was born in 1940 atHubbard Hospital inNashville, Tennessee, to parents Julia Agnes (Washington) andHorace Mann Bond. His father was an educator, then president ofFort Valley State College. His mother, Julia, was a formerlibrarian atClark Atlanta University, also ahistorically black college.[1]
The family resided on campus atFort Valley State College. The house of the Bonds was a frequent stop forscholars,activists, and celebrities passing through, such asW. E. B. Du Bois andPaul Robeson.
In 1945, Bond's father accepted the position of president ofLincoln University, where he was its firstAfrican-American president, and the family moved North.
In 1957, Bond graduated fromGeorge School, a privateQuakerpreparatory boarding school nearNewtown inBucks County,Pennsylvania.[2] He attendedMorehouse College, ahistorically black college inAtlanta, Georgia. He was very involved atMorehouse. He was a swimmer on the varsity squad. He worked as an intern atTime magazine and was one of the founding members ofThe Pegasus, a literary magazine.[3][4]
On April 17, 1960, Bond helped co-found theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[5]
In 1961, Bond left Morehouse to join the staff of theAtlanta Inquirer, a new black protest paper he had helped establish in the summer of 1960 withJesse Hill,Herman J. Russell,[6] and various other students in theAtlanta Student Movement includingCharlayne Hunter-Gault, andLonnie King.[7][8][9]
Following the white violence visited in the summer of 1961 on the firstvoter registration efforts (under the direction ofBob Moses) inMcComb, Mississippi, including the murder of activistHerbert Lee,[10] Bond took the new full-time position of communications director for SNCC assisted byCasey Hayden,Mary King andDottie Miller,[11] until September 1966. During this period, he travelled frequently toMississippi (active in theFreedom Summer registration drive in 1964) and toGeorgia,Alabama, andArkansas.[12]
By the mid-1960s, and without embracing ablack-separatist agenda, Bond was concluding that the continued presence of white organizers inSNCC was undermining black self-confidence. He later reflected:
"The successesFreedom Summer achieved resulted from its embrace of a paradox — it tried to fight bigotry by appealing to people more concerned about whites, not blacks. Appealing to the nation's racism acceptedwhite supremacy. By acknowledging its dependence on whites to popularize the civil rights struggle in the South,SNCC contradicted its rhetorical belief in the equal worth of all races, and undermined its insistence that indigenous blacks were best prepared to lead the struggle for their deliverance from white dominance."[13]
At age 31, withSNCC shedding staff and volunteers after its abortive merger withBlack Panther Party, Bond returned toMorehouse College in 1971, to complete hisBachelor of Arts in English.[14]
In addition to his organizing withSNCC, Bond ran for political office inGeorgia. In 1965, he was one of 11African Americans elected to theGeorgia House of Representatives. They were aided by the expansion of the franchise for blacks in the state, who largely supportedDemocratic Party candidates, after national passage of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 andVoting Rights Act of 1965. The latter especially had brought federal oversight to enforce theconstitutional rights of blacks to vote. As states ended discriminatory practices invoter registration,African Americans regained the ability to vote and entered the political process.[15]
Although initially undecided about his party affiliation, Bond ultimately ran and was elected as aDemocrat, the party of PresidentLyndon B. Johnson, who had supported civil rights, and signed theCivil Rights Act andVoting Rights Act into law.[16] On January 10, 1966, Georgia representatives voted 184–12 not to seat Bond after the election, because he had publicly endorsed SNCC's policy ofopposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War.[17] Five of the representatives who did vote to seat Bond were white, including RepublicanRodney Cook.[18][19] They disliked his stated sympathy for persons who were "unwilling to respond to a military draft".[clarification needed][20]
Bond took the legislature to court. A three-judge panel of theUnited States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in a 2–1 decision that theGeorgia House had not violated any of Bond's constitutional rights. The case reached theSupreme Court of the United States in 1966, which ruled 9–0 in the case ofBond v. Floyd (385 U.S. 116) that theGeorgia House of Representatives had denied Bond hisfreedom of speech and was required to seat him. From 1967 to 1975, Bond was elected to four terms in theGeorgia House, where he organized the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.[21]
In January 1967, Bond was among eleven Georgia House members who refused to vote when the legislature electedsegregationist DemocratLester Maddox of Atlanta asgovernor of Georgia over theRepublicanBo Callaway. Callaway had led in the1966general election by some three thousand votes. Under the Georgia Constitution of 1824, the state legislature had to settle the election because neither major party candidate had polled a majority in the general election. Former GovernorEllis Arnall polled more than fifty thousand votes as a write-in candidate, a factor which led to the impasse. Bond would not support either Maddox or Callaway, although he was ordered to vote bylame duckLieutenant GovernorPeter Zack Geer.[22]
Throughout his House career, Bond had to deal with repeated redistricting of his district by the state legislature:
Bond was elected in 1974 for the first of six terms in theGeorgia Senate, where he served from 1975 to 1987.[26][27][28][29]
During the1968 presidential election, Bond led an alternate delegation from Georgia to theDemocratic National Convention inChicago. There he was the first African American to have his name entered into nomination as a major-party candidate forVice President of the United States. The 28-year-old Bond quickly declined, citing the constitutional requirement that one must be at least 35 years of age to serve in that office.[30][31]
.jpg)
Bond ran for theUnited States House of Representatives fromGeorgia's 5th congressional district (encompassing Atlanta) in 1986. He lost the Democratic nomination in a primary runoff to rival civil rights leaderJohn Lewis in a bitter contest.[32] During it Bond was accused of usingcocaine and other drugs.[33] During the campaign, Lewis challenged Bond to take a drug test (Lewis had said he took one and passed). Bond refused, saying the drug test was akin toMcCarthyism and trivialized the issue of drugs.[34]
While Bond had raised twice as much money as Lewis and had a larger national reputation, Lewis cast himself as the man on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement and ran up large margins over Bond among white liberals in Atlanta.[35] As the district had a very large Democratic majority, winning the Democratic primary meant that Lewis was almost certain to win the general election. After he did so, he served in Congress for 30 years until his death on July 17, 2020.
Still dogged by allegations of drug use, Bond resigned from the Georgia Senate the following year.[36][37] Bond's estranged wife, Alice, who had publicly accused him of using cocaine, later retracted her statements.[31]
After leaving politics, Bond taught at several universities in major cities in the North and South, includingAmerican University,[38]Drexel,[39] andHarvard.[40]
Bond taught the history of the civil rights movement at theUniversity of Virginia from 1990 to 2012. While there he shared his experiences of the movement with thousands of students through stories, newsreels, music, and film.[41] Bond was on the Board of Selectors ofJefferson Awards for Public Service.[42]
WithMorris Dees, in 1971 Bond helped found theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a public-interest law firm based inMontgomery, Alabama.[43] He served as its president until 1979,[44][45] and was an emeritus member of its board of directors at the time of his death in 2015.[46] Bond also advocated for Africans in Europe.[47][48]
In 1998, Bond was selected as chairman of theNAACP. Bond once referred to leading the NAACP as "the most powerful job a Black man can have in America."[49] In November 2008, he announced that he would not seek another term as chairman.[50] Bond agreed to stay on in the position through 2009, as the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary.Roslyn Brock was chosen as Bond's successor on February 20, 2010.[51]
Bond was an outspoken supporter of the rights of gays and lesbians. He publicly stated his support forsame-sex marriage. Most notably, he boycotted the funeral services forCoretta Scott King on the grounds that the King children had chosen an anti-gay megachurch as the venue. This was in conflict with their mother's longstanding support for the rights of gay and lesbian people.[52]
In a 2005 speech in Richmond, Virginia, Bond said:
African Americans ... were the only Americans who were enslaved for two centuries, but we were far from the only Americans suffering discrimination then and now ... Sexual disposition parallels race. I was born this way. I have no choice. I wouldn't change it if I could. Sexuality is unchangeable.[53]
In a 2007 speech on the Martin Luther King Day Celebration atClayton State University, Bond said, "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married." His positions pitted elements of the NAACP against religious groups in the Civil Rights Movement who oppose gay marriage. Most resistance came from within theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which was partially blamed for the success of the gay marriage ban amendment inCalifornia.[54] On October 11, 2009, Bond appeared at theNational Equality March inWashington, D.C., and spoke about the rights of theLGBT community, a speech that was aired live onC-SPAN.[55][56]
Bond was a strong critic of policies that contribute to anthropogenicclimate change. He was among a group of protesters arrested at theWhite House for civil disobedience in opposition to theKeystone XL pipeline in February 2013.[57]
Bond was a strong critic of the George W. Bush administration, in large part because he believed it was illegitimate. Twice in 2001, first in February when he spoke to the NAACP board and then in July when he spoke at that organization's national convention, he attacked the administration for selecting Cabinet secretaries "from theTaliban wing of American politics". Bond specifically criticized Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft, who had opposedaffirmative action, and Interior SecretaryGale Norton, who defended theConfederacy in a 1996 speech on states' rights. In the selection of these individuals, Bond said, Bush had appeased "the wretched appetites of theextreme right wing and chosen Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection". House Majority LeaderDick Armey responded to Bond's statement with a letter in which he accused NAACP leaders of "racial McCarthyism".[58] Bond later said at the annual NAACP convention that year, that since Bush's election, he had "had his picture taken with more black people than voted for him."[58]
In 2012, Bond was featured inJulian Bond: Reflections from the Frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, a documentary film byEduardo Montes-Bradley.[59][60]
From 1980 to 1997, Bond hostedAmerica's Black Forum.[31] He was also a commentator for radio'sByline andNBC'sThe Today Show.[61] He authored thenationally syndicated newspaper columnViewpoint,[38] and narrated the critically acclaimedPBS seriesEyes on the Prize in 1987 and 1990.[62]
Bond hostedSaturday Night Live on April 9, 1977, becoming the first black political figure to do so. In the same year, he also appeared in theRichard Pryor vehicleGreased Lightning. In 1978, Bond played himself in the miniseriesKing.[63] He also had a small appearance playing State Representative John E. White in the movieRay (2004),[64] and played himself in the movie5 to 7 (2014).[65]
On July 28, 1961, Bond married Alice Clopton, a student atSpelman College. They had five children: Phyllis Jane Bond-McMillan, Horace Mann Bond II, Michael Julian Bond (an Atlanta City councilman), Jeffrey Alvin Bond, and Julia Louise Bond. They divorced on November 10, 1989.
In 1990 Bond married Pamela Sue Horowitz, a former SPLC staff attorney.[66] Bond died from complications ofvascular disease on August 15, 2015, inFort Walton Beach, Florida, at the age of 75.[48]
Among 25 honorary degrees, he was awarded:[70]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help){{cite book}}:|last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| History |
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Culture | |||||
| Notable people |
| ||||
| Education, science and technology | |||||
| Religion | |||||
| Political movements | |||||
Civic and economic groups |
| ||||
| Sports |
| ||||
| Ethnic subdivisions | |||||
| Demographics | |||||
| Languages | |||||
| By state/city | |||||
| Diaspora | |||||
| Lists | |||||
