On August 15, 2015, Julian Bond passed away.
Depending on your age or interest in politics, you are saddened by this fact or are asking — “Julian, who?”
Briefly he was an activist, politician, poet and professor.
I was a big fan dating back to the early 1960s when he was a leader in SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.)
He was also the first president of the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center.) He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1967 to 1974 and in the Georgia Senate from 1975 to 1987.
Finally, he was chairman of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) from 1998 to 2010, but these are merely the bare bones of a man’s life.
My most vivid recollection of Bond was at the 1968 Democratic Convention. What a year that was!
Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. The Vietnam War was raging and, as a result, President Johnson declared he would not be a candidate for re-election.
The Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, was a supporter of Hubert Humphrey and was no friend of the Hippies, Yippies and college students who descended upon Chicago to protest.
Daley was responsible for what was later designated “a police riot.”
His police tear-gassed, chased and beat the young people in the streets. They, in turn, chanted: “The whole world is watching!” And, indeed, it was.
One incident still vivid in my mind was watching Alex Rosenberg, a New York delegate, being carried off the convention floor by police. I knew Alex since his son was a student in my class.
Julian Bond came to Chicago leading an inter-racial delegation from Georgia while Lester Maddox, the segregationist governor led an all white delegation.
Miraculously, the Rules Committee seated the Bond group.
But this was not the piece de resistance for someone arose and put Bond’s name in nomination to be vice president of the United States.
There was thunderous applause on the floor of the convention, not to mention in this writer’s living room.
But our moment of exaltation was short lived because Bond rose and informed the throng that the Constitution stated one must be 35 years of age to run for that office and he was only 28.
Richard Cohen, current SPLC president, describes the event as follows: “It was a thrilling moment, a moment of hope at a time of great tragedy.”
History is full of quirks and unlikely occurrences.
One of the persons who worked closely with Bond was John Lewis.
Together they were instrumental in founding SNCC and for over 20 years they were close friends — their families even taking vacations together.
But in 1986, a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives opened up and both Bond and Lewis wanted to fill it.
One couldn’t find two more dissimilar figures.
Bond was the son of a college president; Lewis the son of a sharecropper. Bond was handsome, articulate and a friend of Hollywood celebrities. Lewis was not a great orator, but was a humble man of the people.
In a vitriolic campaign which involved charges of drug-taking and accusations of“Uncle Tomism,” a friendship was shattered.
I had the pleasure of meeting John Lewis in 2004 and have to smile as I read the inscription in my copy of “Walking with the Wind,: his autobiography: It reads: “To Hal, Keep the faith, John Lewis.”
In an upset, Lewis won the election and has held the seat right up to the present time.
They say that time heals all wounds and as the years passed, the two adversaries were able to resume their friendship.
When Lewis heard of Bond’s passing, he tweeted: “We went through a difficult period during our campaign for Congress in 1986, but many years ago we emerged even closer.”
And in another tweet, he wrote: Julian Bond’s leadership and his spirit will be deeply missed.”
The generation of black ministers and civil rights activists who surrounded Martin Luther King is passing away.
For young black Americans, the civil rights struggle may seem like arcane history. All the more reason why remembering men like Julian Bond is so important.
Bond was keenly aware of the importance of race in American life. He wrote: “America is race. From its symbolism to its substance, from its founding by slaveholders to its rending by the Civil War…from Emmett Till to Travon Martin to Michael Brown…” And the solution he posits: “Good things don’t come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate.”
Farewell, Julian Bond….
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
