Julian Bond, civil rights activist & politician, Dies at 75

  Dead Famous

Dead, Horace Julian Bond, born January 14, 1940 and died August 15, 2015 after a brief illness, known as Julian Bond, was an American social activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement, politician, professor, and writer.

While a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Bond was elected to four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives and later to six terms in the Georgia Senate, having served a combined twenty years in both legislative chambers.

From 1998 to 2010, he was chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

On April 17, 1960, Bond helped co-found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

He served as the communications director of the SNCC from January 1961 to September 1966, where he traveled around Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas to help organize civil rights and voter registration drives.

Bond left Morehouse College in 1961 to work on civil rights in the South. From 1960 to 1963, he led student protests against segregation in public facilities and the Jim Crow laws of Georgia.

He returned in 1971 at age 31 to complete his Bachelor of Arts in English.

With Morris Dees, Bond helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a public-interest law firm based in Montgomery, Alabama.

He served as its president from 1971 to 1979. Bond was an Emeritus member of the Southern Poverty Law Center Board of Directors at his death.