"The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economic conquests only, but for political power. The question will arise, and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule -- wealth or man; which shall lead -- money or intellect; who shall fill public stations -- educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?"
-- Edward G. Ryan, chief justice of Wisconsin Supreme Court, address to graduating class at University of Wisconsin, 1873.
Mr. Bond was a former chairman of the N.A.A.C.P., a leading figure of the 1960s civil rights movement and a lightning rod of the anti-Vietnam War campaign. He was 75.
Julian Bond died last night. He was one of America’s great Civil Rights leaders. Bond headed the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP, served in the Georgia legislature for 20 years, and was the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States.
As a young man, Bond organized Freedom Rides that desegregated bus systems in the south and mobilized mass black voter registration drives. He got voted into the Georgia Assembly a year after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted. Before taking office he voiced support for a statement denouncing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and sympathizing with draft evasion, which led the Assembly to accuse him of treason and bar him from being seated. Bond insisted he had a First Amendment right to his views, and pushed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in his favor. Bond finally took his place in the Georgia House in 1967.
Julian Bond’s life serves as a vivid example of the intimate connection between personal courage, civil rights, voting rights, freedom of speech, and the mobilization of blacks and whites for justice. May his memory serve as an inspiration to future generations of Americans.
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