Fort Valley State holding ceremony for Julian Bond

Georgia asked me if that was on this memorial. “They come to those who agitate”.

I can’t say for sure how much it impressed Bond or his wife of 24 years, Pamela Horowitz.

Julian Bond epitomized, in both words and deeds, an impassioned truth for the need to create a fair justice system.

He was a cofounder and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the early 1960s civil rights revolution. Although SNCC had a few “elders” – Ella Baker, James Forman, and Robert Moses – in the main it was composed of young black students from Southern high schools and colleges.

In 2006 we began building the Historic Thousands on Jones Street Coalition and Julian attended several of these annual People’s Assemblies. The irony of Sammy losing his life after losing his kidney in service to his country prompted SNCC to issue an antiwar statement.

Deal said Bond served in the Georgia House of Representatives and state senate for almost 20 years.

My favorite memory of Julian Bond was seeing him be nominated for Vice-President at the raucous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

The Klan was forced to sell their National Headquarters as a means to pay the judgement.

Bond at his Washington home in 1998, after he was elected chairman of the NAACP. Bond also hosted the nationally syndicated television program America’s Black Forum and was a commentator for Byline and for The Today Show (NBC). “Selma”, produced by Paramount Pictures, Pathé and Harpo Films, opened nationwide January 9, 2015 and chronicles the 1965 Selma to Montgomery protest marches in Alabama led by a group of fearless men and women in the fight for equal voting rights.

Late civil rights figure Julian Bond will be honored at Fort Valley State on Saturday. He was a tireless fighter in the climate change movement – opposing the Keystone pipeline long before others did.

Bond, who died on August. 15 at the age of 75, was the son of the university’s first president, Horace Mann Bond, and spent part of his childhood on the campus.

This gathering of Julian’s friends and admirers is in response to his family’s invitation to meet at “a body of water…precisely at 3:00pm” to participate symbolically in their sharing of Julian ‘s ashes with the sea….

I have always believed that we each have a responsibility to contribute to the betterment of our communities and society. Black Southerners suffered egregious economic and social oppression for the next 58 years, until the NAACP knocked the legal legs out from under Jim Crow.

I appreciate the examples he left for me.

I also had a former basketball player tell me that I should ease up on my criticism of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, because nearly everyone thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Now, Brother Julian, you get a well-deserved rest.