FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Julian Bond, a major figure in the 1960s civil rights movement who served as a longtime board chairman of the NAACP, died Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75.
Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, the SPLC said in a statement released Sunday morning.
“I don’t know if you can possibly measure his imprint. It’s extraordinary. It stretches his entire career and life in so many ways,” said Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney in Birmingham who helped Bond when brought students to Alabama to visit civil rights sites.
“That was, I think, his real calling in his later years was to make sure that history stayed alive so that people could understand the connection between 50 years ago and today.”
“You can use the term giant, champion, trail blazer —- there’s just not enough adjectives in the English language to describe the life and career of Julian bond,” Jones added.
The Nashville, Tennessee, native was considered a symbol and icon of the 1960s civil rights movement. As a Morehouse College student, Bond helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and as its communications director, he was on the front lines of protests that led to the nation’s landmark civil rights laws.
Bond later served as board chairman of the 500,000-member NAACP for 10 years but declined to run again for another one-year term in 2010. This article was originally published via Yahoo
