Julian Bond, US Civil Rights Activist, Dies Aged 75

By Associated Press

16 August 15

Longtime NAACP chair described as a visionary and tireless champion for civil and human rights

ulian Bond, a US civil rights activist and longtime chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has died aged 75.

Bond died on Saturday night in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he was considered a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement in the US. As a Morehouse College student, Bond helped found the student non-violent coordinating committee, and as its communications director he was on the frontline of protests that led to landmark civil rights laws.

He later served as chair of the 500,000-member NAACP for a decade, but declined to run again for the post in 2010. He also served in the Georgia state legislature and was a professor at American University in Washington DC and the University of Virginia.

The Southern Poverty Law Center called Bond a visionary and tireless champion for civil and human rights. “With Julian’s passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice,” the centre’s co-founder, Morris Dees, said.

“He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognised the common humanity in us all,” Dees said.

Bond is survived by his wife, Pamela Horowitz, a former staff lawyer for the law centre, his five children, a brother and a sister.