Who is Julian Bond and Why is He an ICON?

Who is Julian Bond and Why is he a Civil Rights Icon?

 Julian Bond died this Saturday at the age of 75. He was hailed as an Icon of the Civil rights movement. For many of my students and millennials, the word icon is used frequently and assigned without merit. Also often the phrases and words Civil Rights movement and Civil rights icon provokes black and white images, Martin Luther King Jr, people marching and an era long, long ago.  Our Civil Rights leaders are important and we need to understand why.  So who is Julian Bond and Why is he a Civil Rights Icon? And most important why is he important and how did he make a difference?

1.      Julian Bond was one of the founders of SNCC, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. SNCC was one of the most important organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. SNCC played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party . SNCC's major contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He was 20 years old.

A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks.

—Julian Bond

2.   Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia State legislation to the House of Representatives. He was 25 years old. However, the legislation refused to swear him in and seat him because of his verbal opposition to the War in Vietnam. The Supreme Court of the United States intervened and ruled in his favor.  He served the House from 1967-75 and the Senate from 1975-86.

3.  Julian Bond attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he was nominated as a vice-presidential candidate. He was the first African American to receive the honor, but withdrew his name because he was not old enough to hold the office according to constitutional guidelines. He was 28 years old.

4.  He graduated from Morehouse College in 1971 with a degree in English. He was 31 years old.

5. In 1971 he was the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and served until 1978.

6. He served as the National Chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2010.

7. He has received more than 25 honorary degrees from universities across the country.

Julian Bond made great use of his talents and skills. He served his community, city, and nation. He saw needs and injustice and he did something by serving and advocating for equality. By standing up for others he changed our world... and he didn't wait until he was old. What are you doing now to change the world and make a difference?