Julian Bond

HORACE JULIAN BOND (Jan. 14, 1940 – Aug. 15, 2015), U.S. legislator and black civil-rights leader, best known for his fight to take his duly elected seat in the Georgia House of Representatives.  The son of prominent educators, Bond attended Morehouse College in Atlanta (B.A., 1971), where he helped found a civil-rights group and led a sit-in movement intended to desegregate Atlanta lunch counters.

In 1960 Bond joined in creating the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and he later served as communications director for the group. In 1965 he won a seat in the Georgia state legislature, but his endorsement of a SNCC statement accusing the United States of violating international law in Vietnam prompted the legislature to refuse to admit him. 

The voters in his district twice reelected him, but each time, the legislature barred him. Finally, in December 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the exclusion unconstitutional, and Bond was sworn in on Jan. 9, 1967.

At the Democratic National Convention in 1968, Bond led an insurgent group of delegates that won half the Georgia seats. He seconded the nomination of Eugene McCarthy and became the first black man to have his name placed in nomination for the vice presidential candidacy of a major party. Younger than the minimum age required for the position under the Constitution, however, Bond withdrew his name.

Bond served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1967 to 1975 and in the Georgia Senate from 1975 to 1987. In 1986 he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In addition to his legislative activities, Bond served as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and as regional president of the Atlanta National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Julian Bond died Saturday August 15, 2015 after a brief illness in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Birth date: January 14, 1940

Birthplace: Nashville, Tennessee

Birth name: Horace Julian Bond

Father: Horace Mann Bond, an educator

Mother: Julia (Washington) Bond, a librarian

Marriages: Pamela Sue Horowitz (March 17, 1990-present); Alice Clopton (July 28, 1961-November 10, 1989, divorced)

Children: with Deborah Kaye Moore: Mia, 1988; with Alice Clopton: Julia Louise, 1969; Jeffrey Alvin, 1968; Michael Julian, 1966; Horace Mann II, 1963; Phyllis Jane, 1962

Education: Morehouse College, B.A., 1971

Other Facts:
Is the first African-American to have his name placed in nomination for vice president of the United States. He could not accept the nomination because he was only 28 years old, which is under the age of eligibility according to the Constitution.

His father, Horace Mann Bond, became the first African-American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

Timeline:
March 1960 – Is arrested during a student protest of the segregated Atlanta City Hall cafeteria.

1960 – Is a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

1961-1966 – Serves as the communications director of the SNCC.

1961 – Leaves college and begins working for the Atlanta Inquirer newspaper.

1965 – Is elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He is not seated because House members oppose his outspoken views against the Vietnam War.

1966 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Georgia House of Representatives must seat Bond.

1967-1974 – Serves in the Georgia House of Representatives.

1968 – Is part of a challenge delegation from Georgia that successfully unseats Georgia’s regular democrats at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

1968 – Is nominated as vice president of the United States. He withdraws his name because the Constitution’s age requirement is 35 and Bond, at 28, is too young.

1974-1989 – President of the NAACP Atlanta chapter.

1971-1979 – President of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

1975-1986 – Member of the Georgia Senate.

April 9, 1977 – Hosts “Saturday Night Live.”

1980-1997 – Hosts the show “America’s Black Forum.”

April 2, 1985 – Is arrested outside the South African Embassy while protesting against apartheid.

1986 – Loses election for U.S. House of Representatives to John Lewis.

March 1987 – Bond’s estranged wife, Alice, makes public accusations that Bond and other Atlanta public figures are cocaine users. She later retracts her statements.

1990 – Is ordered to pay $2,000 a month in child support to Deborah Kaye Moore after acknowledging he is the father of her daughter, Mia Moore.

1992-2012 – Professor at the University of Virginia teaching courses on civil rights.

1998-2010 – Chairman of the NAACP.

2002 – Receives the National Freedom Award.