“With Julian’s passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice”, said Morris Dees, co-founder of the SPLC, a legal advocacy group that specializes in civil rights.
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The son of a former president of Lincoln University and a librarian, Bond co-founded the Student Nonviolent Corodinating Committee while at university in Georgia and organised civil rights rallies and protests against segregation at public institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the legislature to allow him to assume office the following year.
From 1967 to 1974, Bond was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.
“He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all”, he said.
The 75-year-old civil rights activist died in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after a short, unspecified illness, the SPLC said in a statement early Sunday.
Bond was the first president of the SPLC between 1971 and 1979.
Julian Bond (second from left) listens as Phillip Agnew (second from right), executive director of the Dream Defenders, announces the end of a 31-day sit-in at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee that was held in response to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Julian Bond, civil rights leader, has died at age 75.
Also in 2013, a Huffington Post piece quoted Bond regarding the link between civil and LGBT rights. From 1998 until 2010, Bond served as chairman of the NAACP. “He traveled all over America, speaking on college campuses, but also to large groups for peace, for non-violence and for protecting the environment”.
Bond served for a decade as board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP, declining to run again in 2010.
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Bond is survived by his wife and five children.
