Julian Bond
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Horace Julian Bond (born 14 January 1940 in Nashville, Tennessee) is an American leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia during the early 1960's, he helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) He has been Chairman of the NAACP since 1998. He served in the Georgia legislature as both a Representative and as a Senator. He has been a lecturer at the University of Virginia since 1990 and a professor there since 1998. In addition, he has been a professor at American University near his Washington, DC home since 1991. Bond has been known to berate conservative African-Americans like former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Alan Keyes and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also has been known as a divisive figure because of his support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage.
Biography
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Bond's family moved to Pennsylvania when he was five years old when his father, Horace Mann Bond, took a position as the first African American President of Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), his alma mater. Bond attended Morehouse College in Atlanta beginning in 1957. While there, he won a varsity letter for swimming. He was also instrumental in founding a literary magazine called The Pegasus and he served as an intern at Time magazine.In 1960, Bond was a founding member of the SNCC and served as communications director from 1961 to 1966. From 1960 to 1963, he led student protests against segregation in public facilities in Georgia.
Bond graduated from Morehouse in 1961 and helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) along with Morris Dees. He was the organization's president from 1971 to 1979. The SPLC works to protect legal rights and through the courts to protect the legal rights of the poor of all races.
Five years later, Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. After his election, however, the other members of the House refused to seat him because of his publicly expressed opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the House had denied Bond his freedom of speech and had to seat him.
From 1965 to 1975, he served as a Democratic member in the Georgia House for four terms. He went on to serve six terms in the Georgia Senate from 1975-86.
During the 1968 Presidential election, Bond led a challenge delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and was the first African-American nominated as Vice President of the United States. He withdrew his name from the ballot, however, because of the Constitutional requirement that a person must be at least 35 years of age to serve.
Bond resigned from the State Senate to run for the United States House of Representatives, but he lost to civil rights leader John Lewis. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Bond taught at several universities, including American, Drexel, and Harvard universities and the University of Virginia.
Bond continues with his activism as Chairman of the NAACP and working to educate the public about the history of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggles that African Americans and the poor still endure. He serves as President Emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He hosted "America's Black Forum" from 1980 until 1997 and still serves as a commentator for the show.
He also serves as a commentator for radio's Byline and for NBC's Today Show. He authored the nationally-syndicated newspaper column Viewpoint. He narrated the critically-acclaimed PBS series Eyes on the Prize in 1987 and 1990, on the life of New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell.
He has published A Time To Speak, A Time To Act, a collection of his essays as well as Black Candidates Southern Campaign Experiences. His poems and articles have appeared in a Who’s Who list of magazines and newspapers.
Misattributed Comments
As NAACP chairman, Bond has been accused of making partisan speeches against the Republican party. WorldNet Daily, a conservative blog, reported that Bond had stated in a February 2006 speech at Fayetteville State University, a historically black college in North Carolina, that "the Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side." He also reportedly called Secretary of State Rice and former Secretary Powell "tokens" and compared the judicial nominees of President George W. Bush to the Taliban. [link] Bond has denied making such statements [link] and a complete recording of his speech shows that such statements were never made [link].
Currently
Today Bond is a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and a faculty member in the history department at the University of Virginia. Bond will retire from teaching at Virginia following the spring 2007 semester, but will continue teaching one day a week at American. In 1999, Bond received a LL.D. from Bates College.
Bond is also heavily involved in the Living Wage movement at the University of Virginia.
Trivia
Bond hosted Saturday Night Live on April 9, 1977. One of the most famous segments from this appearance, is the "[Black Perspective]" skit with then-SNL cast member Garrett Morris.External links
- [NAACP biography]
- [SPLC biography]
- [Brief video clip] From the State Library & Archives of Florida.
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