Iconic Civil Rights Leader Julian Bond Dies

 Julian Bond (photo by Eduardo Montes-Bradley)
Photo by Eduardo Montes-Bradley

Julian Bond, a lifelong champion of equal rights and former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), died on August 15 at age 75. A friend of the Sierra Club, Bond was among 48 environmental, civil rights, and community leaders who joined with the Club in its first official act of civil disobedience, protesting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline outside the White House in February 2013.

"It was an honor to stand next to Julian Bond when the Sierra Club engaged in peaceful civil disobedience for the first time in our organization's history," said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. "Julian was soft-spoken but fierce in his commitment to justice. I'll always remember his big heart that he showed us that day. "

That's Bond at left, below, with Brune and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben.

Julian Bond, Michael Brune, and Bill McKibben protest the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline outside the White House on February 13, 2013
Photo by Javier Sierra

In 1960, while an undergraduate at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Bond co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He left Morehouse the following year to work on civil rights issues in the South, leading student protests against segregation in public facilities and against the Jim Crow laws of Georgia. (He later returned to Morehouse to complete his degree.)

During the 1968 presidential election, Bond led an alternate delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he became the first African American to be nominated as a major-party candidate for Vice President of the United States. (Watch this video clip of the 28-year-old Bond being interviewed by CBS News correspondent Dan Rather on the convention floor; the interview starts at the 3:45 mark of the video.)

Bond went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives and six terms in the Georgia State Senate, serving a combined twenty years in both legislative chambers. In 1971 he became the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, serving until 1979 and remaining a board member and president emeritus for the rest of his life. He served as chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2010.

Long a supporter of the environmental movement and an advocate for environmental justice, Bond was a strong critic of policies that contribute to climate change.

"Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life," President Obama told The New York Times the day after Bond died. "Julian Bond helped change this country for the better. And what better way to be remembered than that?"

Julian Bond at Lincoln Memorial during filming of the documentary "Julian Bond: Reflections from the Frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement"
Photo by Eduardo Montes-Bradley