Veteran civil rights leader
Julian Bond has died:
(AP) - Julian Bond, a civil rights
activist and 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.
The
Nashville, Tenn. 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.
The SPLC said Bond was a "visionary" and "tireless champion" for civil and human rights.
"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 in a statement. "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."
Bond also served in the Georgia state legislature and was a professor at American University and the University of Virginia.
In recent years, Bond also was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and actions to reduce the impacts of climate change.
