Like many, Alma Speed Fox was shocked when she heard Julian Bond, educator, politician, NAACP board chairman and civil rights icon, had died at 75.
“He always looked so young—he still did. I thought he’d always look that way,” she said. “Though I didn’t get to work with him, I loved seeing him at the Chicago convention. He could put people together—the NAACP, the Urban League. It was hard to build coalitions, but he could.”
Connie Parker, NAACP Pittsburgh Unit President, was equally shocked by the news.
“I just saw him at the National NAACP convention in Philadelphia last month. It was a total surprise,” she said. “Julian had great stature. He was a solid man. And he had that southern gentleman mentality, the clothes and the mannerisms. He has to remain part of our history because we need to know what we’re working for. He knew what he was working for.”
Bond is remembered for founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at age 20 in 1960 and leading student protests of Jim Crow laws throughout Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas at a time when Blacks were being shot or hanged for such activity.
Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Bond was elected to the U.S. House from Georgia and later elected to the Senate. At the 1968 Democratic convention, he became the first African American nominated for president by a major party.
“He was one of my influences in the 1960s,” said Tim Stevens, former Pittsburgh NAACP president. “I was proud when he integrated the Georgia legislature. He always had a cerebral approach, but was direct to issues dealing with race. And as a spokesperson, he was a riveting icon. Another one of my heroes, he’ll be missed.”
Rick Adams, longtime Civil Rights activist and assistant vice president of the Frieda Shapira Center at Community College of Allegheny County said Bond would be remembered for his courage.
“Julian Bond will be forever remembered as the erudite, soft spoken revolutionary that played a pivotal role on the front lines as a courageous soldier in the fight to topple the decades old edifice of Jim Crow as a SNCC organizer at a time when to just call for voting rights could get you killed,” he said.
“He publically criticized the notorious FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover when others would not even mention his name in private for fear of retribution. Julian was unquestionably one of the greatest champions of human rights bar none.”
(Send comments to cmorow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)
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