Julian Bond, The Civil Rights Activist And Ex-NAACP Chairman, Died At 75

By R. Siva Kumar - 17 Aug '15 09:52AM

He was a blazing civil rights activist, anti-Vietnam War campaigner and lifelong champion of equality. He had been the board chairman of the NAACP for a long time.

This charismatic man died on Saturday night, reported the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to jetmag.

The 75-year-old died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, following a brief illness, said the SPLC on Sunday morning. His wife, Pamela, reported that he had been claimed by vascular disease.

The resident from Nashville, Tennessee, was thought to be a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement.

Being a Morehouse College student, he helped to start the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and being its communications director, led the protests taking the US to its landmark civil rights laws.

For 10 years, he was the board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP, yet he refused to stand for another year in 2010.

Bond was a "visionary" and "tireless champion" for civil and human rights, said the SPLC. "With Julian's passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice," SPLC 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 recognized the common humanity in us all."

Former Ambassador Andrew Young said Bond's legacy would be as a 'lifetime struggler'. "He started when he was about 17 and he went to 75," Young said, according to yahoo. "And I don't know a single time when he was not involved in some phase of the civil rights movement."

President Barack Obama called Bond a hero. "Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life," Obama said. "Julian Bond helped change this country for the better."

He had also been part of the Georgia state legislature as well as a professor at American University and the University of Virginia.

He is survived by his wife, Pamela Horowitz, who is also an ex-SPLC staff attorney, his five children, his brother, James Bond and his sister Jane Bond Moore.