Civil rights pioneer and legislator Julian Bond will deliver the 2013 Charleston Lecture in Southern Affairs on November 19, 2013.
Bond’s address, “Civil Rights, Then and Now,” follows the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in which he played an important part. “Julian Bond has been on the front lines of change in the South for half a century,” notes CSAS director Jocelyn Neal. “He brings a voice of profound wisdom, experience, and insight to our audiences.”
While a student at Morehouse College, Bond helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later served as its communications director. With Morris Dees, he helped establish the Southern Poverty Law Center, and served as its president between 1971 and 1979 (he now serves as president emeritus). Bond was elected to four terms in the Georgia House of Representatives and to six terms in the Georgia Senate, and between 1998 and 2010, he served as the national chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
“Julian Bond has been an indomitable long-distance runner in the nation’s ongoing struggle over civil rights,” says W. Hodding Carter III, Professor of Public Policy and Leadership at UNC. “Charismatic, articulate, and brave, an intellectual revolutionary, he has served in virtually every capacity and on almost every front of America’s longest and best war.”
Bond holds 25 honorary degrees, and currently serves as Distinguished Visiting Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., as well as Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His publications include A Time to Speak, A Time to Act, and “Viewpoint,” a nationally syndicated newspaper column.
“From his undergraduate years at Morehouse College in the early 1960s to the present, Julian Bond has been an eloquent voice for civil rights and equal opportunities for all Americans,” says the Center’s Senior Associate Director, William R. Ferris.
UNC Chancellor Carol L. Folt will introduce Bond at the Stone Center. “We are especially grateful to those who support the Charleston Lecture in Southern Affairs so that we can bring this caliber of guest to the Carolina community,” says Neal. “It is a true honor to welcome Julian Bond to the Center and UNC.” This program is also supported by the generous contributions of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.