Contacts:
Ginny Davis
(901) 843-3470
John Kerr
(901) 843-3873
Jan. 4, 2000
Program to Honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Julian Bond to Speak at Rhodes College, Wednesday, January 19
(Memphis, Tenn.)-- American civil rights activist, scholar and former Georgia legislator, Julian Bond will speak at Rhodes College on Wednesday, Jan. 19.
The program celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. begins at 7 p.m. in McCallum Ballroom of the Bryan Campus Life Center and is free and open to the public.
Nearly 30 years after he helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, NAACP National Board Chairman Julian Bond will discuss "2000: A Race Odyssey"
An author, lecturer and broadcast commentator, Bond is a distinguished scholar-in-residence at the American University in Washington, D.C., and a professor of history at the University of Virginia. He also has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel and Harvard universities and Williams College.
Born in Nashville, Tenn., in 1940, Bond is the son of the late Dr. Horace Mann Bond, a college and university president who later served as dean of the School of Education at Atlanta University.
Julian Bond entered Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1957. While a Morehouse student in 1960, he helped found the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights, a student organization that directed three years of non-violent anti-segregation protests that won integration of Atlanta's movie theaters, lunch counters and parks. Bond was arrested for participating in a sit-in at the then-segregated Atlanta City Hall cafeteria.
Also in 1960 Bond and several hundred students from across the South formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As the SNCC's communications director, Bond was active in protests and voter registration campaigns throughout the South.
Bond left college one semester short of graduation in 1961 to work for a new protest newspaper and later became its managing editor. He returned to Morehouse to earn a bachelor's degree in English in 1971.
During the intervening years, Bond entered the political field in a contest that would reach the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1965 he won a special election for a one-year term in the Georgia House of Representatives. House members who objected to his opposition to the Vietnam War voted not to seat him.
Bond won a second election to fill his vacant seat in 1966, and again a House vote barred him from membership. He won a third election for a two-year term later that year. In December 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Georgia House had violated Bond's rights in refusing him his seat.
In 1968 Bond led a challenge group to the Democratic national convention, where the group successfully unseated the regular Georgia delegation. The 28-year-old Bond was nominated as a candidate for the vice presidency during the convention, but had to decline the nomination because he was too young to serve in the post.
Bond served four terms in the Georgia House before his election to the Georgia Senate in 1974. He served six terms in the Senate, leaving in 1987 after an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives.
During his service in the Georgia General Assembly, Bond sponsored or cosponsored more than 60 bills that became law. He waged a successful fight in the legislature and courts to create a majority black congressional district in Atlanta and organized the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.
Bond was founder and president of the Southern Elections Fund, a political action committee that aided in the elections of rural Southern black candidates. He has been adviser and board member of numerous organizations working to effect social change. He is president emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Bond's tenure with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People includes serving as president of the Atlanta chapter from 1978 until 1989 and four terms on the NAACP National Board. He was elected chairman in 1998.
Bond holds honorary degrees from 19 institutions of higher learning and has been host and commentator on America's Black Forum, the oldest black-owned show in television syndication, since 1980. He also has written a nationally syndicated newspaper column.
Bond has narrated numerous documentaries, including the 1994 Academy Award-winning A Time for Justice and the acclaimed 1987 and 1990 PBS series, Eyes on the Prize.
Time magazine named Bond to its 200 Leaders list. He received the 1985 Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and a similar award from the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union in 1990. In 1984 he received the Legislative Service Award from the Georgia Municipal Association.
A Time to Speak, a Time to Act is a published collection of Bond's essays. Bond is the author of Black Candidates -- Southern Campaign Experiences. His articles and poems have appeared in The Nation, Negro Digest, Life, Playboy, The New York Times, American Negro Poetry, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlanta Constitution and other publications. He is co-editor of Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table.
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