Description

Bond discusses his early years, his education at Morehouse College, and his involvement in the civil rights movement, including his activities with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He talks about the racial and political climate in Atlanta in the 1960s, at a time when he was organizing sit-ins, protests, and voter registration drives. He also details his experience in the political arena as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives and, later, the Georgia senate.Horace Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee. As a student of all-black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Bond began his commitment to the civil rights movement when he helped to organize the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights. In 1960 Bond helped to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student organization that provided grassroots support for civil rights in local communities. Bond served as communications director of SNCC, editing its protest magazine The Atlanta Inquirer. In 1965 he won a seat to the Georgia legislature, but was denied his seat because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond would be elected by his district and denied a seat a total of three times before the U.S. Supreme Court declared the actions of the Georgia House unconstitutional. Bond took his seat in the House in 1967 and served there until 1974, when he was elected to the Georgia senate. Around this time, Bond served as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights law...

Record Contributed By

Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia