Savannah NAACP President Remembers Julian Bond as a Friend and Champion of

Bond was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

He gradually moved from the militancy of the student group to the leadership of the establishmentarian NAACP.

Bond served in the Georgia House until 1975 and then six terms in the Georgia Senate until 1986. He reasoned, he sought others’ opinions, he became a great face for the movement on television.

Remembered as a champion for civil rights we are hearing from more people today about the great Julian Bond. Dees says he stayed active on its board of directors until his death. Robert F. Kennedy had also fallen to an assassin’s bullets; the convention, dogged by nonstop protesting outside its doors and in the streets of Chicago, became an internationally broadcast tempest of anger, grief, disillusionment, and inter-generational contempt. With Bobby Kennedy gone, the delegates nominated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey for the presidency (he would lose a close election to Richard M. Nixon in November). Members of the Legislature refused to seat him, citing his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War, a posture they called “repugnant” and “inconsistent” with the oath of office he was required to take. He passed legislation that mandated the testing of young people for sickle cell anemia, economic disengagement from Apartheid governed South Africa and low interest loans for low-to-moderate-income home buyers. Along the way he helped carve out a U.S. Congress district to more equitably represent the black residents of the region. At the remarkable age of 25, he was elected to the Georgia State House. Michelle and I have benefited from his example, his counsel, and his friendship – and we offer our prayers and sympathies to his wife, Pamela, and his children.

Parker said Bond’s ideas not only shaped the local SCLC chapter, but also himself. She retracted her accusations after Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta, telephoned her, leading to speculation that improper political pressure had been used.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in January of 1940, to Julia Washington Bond and Horace Mann Bond. As Lewis and Bond spoke during an evening rally at a small black church, Belzoni’s mayor, Henry H. Gantz, a well-dressed middle-aged white man, unexpectedly burst through the door and walked down the center of the aisle.

On Monday, his work and life was remembered by those in Albany, including former Albany mayor Tommy Coleman, who was chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party from 1980 to 1983. He taught at, among other schools, Harvard, Penn, the University of Virginia, American University, Williams College and Drexel University. He wrote poetry and articles for publications as varied as The Nation, Negro Digest and Playboy.

Mr. Bond ran for the United States House of Representatives, but lost a bitter race to John Lewis, a former colleague who had been chairman of SNCC.

Bond was a critic of the George W. Bush administration.

“When I first got the email, I was very shocked”, said Driver-Moultrie, president of the NAACP Killeen Branch No. 6189.

“Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life”, Obama said. “I will greatly miss my friend and my hero, Dr. Julian Bond”. And we grappled with them and said, “Here is the best way to go about this thing”.