"Julian Bond, a former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a charismatic figure of the 1960s civil rights movement, a lightning rod of the anti-Vietnam War campaign and a lifelong champion of equal rights for minorities, died on Saturday night, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75."
I remember when I believed the next 3 Presidents would be Bobby Kennedy, John Lindsay, and Julian Bond.
I remember when Julian Bond was nominated for the office of Vice President — video here — at the 1968 Democratic Convention. This was done by the Wisconsin delegation for the symbolism and in protest. "It may be a symbolic nomination tonight, but it may not be symbolic 4 years hence."
Julian Bond was only 28, far too young to meet the constitutional minimum. Even "4 years hence," he would be too young.
ADDED: Here's Julian Bond, many years later, interviewing Clarence Thomas:
August 16, 2015
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I wish I could embed that video, but embedding is disabled on it. Don't miss it. After the nominating speech, there's an interview with Bond.
I've always thought of Bond as a person who would have hated me for the color of my skin (it's white). I never got that vibe from any other mainstream Black leader.
I've always thought of Bond as Malcolm X with manners.
God, I think Clarence Thomas should be on the $20 bill or something. He is a national treasure. Instead, we get Al Sharpton. What a tragedy !
Julian Bond was only 28, far too young to meet the constitutional minimum. Even “4 years hence,” he would be too young.
As we see with Obama, what's to stop anyone then or now from doing as he did? Not that I believe that Obama was actually born outside the U.S., but the issue was raised (by Hillary! IIRC), it was suspected by many — so how did Obama deal with it? Not by proving where he was born, but by ignoring the problem, running anyway, attracting a flock of voters, winning the election, and having Congress thereafter certify the results. Voila! Afterwords the issue is moot, as Althouse herself has pointed out.
Too bad it wasn't Louis "Allahu Akbar and Kill Whitey" Farrakhan.
Ah Ms. Althouse remembers her youthful indiscretions. RFK--Julian Bond--John Lindsay as the next three Presidents? As the saying goes, too soon old, too late smart.
I am empathetic with Althouse about her feelings concerning Julian Bond when he burst upon the national scene. He seemed to have all the destiny, and more, of a Kennedy. He was an Obama, forty years before 2008.
But then he virtually disappeared from public life, or at least from anything even remotely connected to electoral politics. I have always presumed that there existed some super-secret scandal in Bond's life. Cocaine; heroin; homosexuality; HIV/AIDS; something else. I remain convinced of that, without any good evidence to go on.
My first thought after hearing the news of his death was that now we might find out what destroyed Julian Bond's political career.
Too bad it wasn't Louis "Allahu Akbar and Kill Whitey" Farrakhan.
Farrakhan's brand of "Muslim" does not worship Allah. They believe in a sort of mad scientist who created humanity. He undercooked the first batch and produced the evil white, ice people. Then he tried again, got it just right, and produced Black people.
One of the reasons Malcolm X was killed by the Nation of Islam is because he went to Saudi Arabia and discovered real Islam. This meant that he was now a threat to them.
Thanks for the link to that interview.
Interestingly, Thomas comes off as the greater man.
At least he had the sense to pick the right political philosophy - constitutional conservatism.
Whatever else Bond was, those he chose to associate with, speaks ill of his judgement.
Michael McNeil @11:06:
I say he was born in Hawaii, but he was hiding his real, official, and regularly-issued birth certificate(s) for reasons other than where he was born. There's something else about that document or those documents he didn't want to disclose. I put it as possibly plural documents because he was supposedly adopted by Lolo Soetoro, and how Hawaii recorded that adoption is unknown. And I don't buy the 2011 one he released as being one that was real, official, nor regularly-issued. It raises more questions than it attempts to answer.
I should add; about my suspicions of something like a cocaine scandal with Julian Bond...
When Bond ran in a Congessional primary against the race-icon John Lewis, Lewis taunted Bond demanding that Bond take a drug screening test for Cocaine, and announcing that he (Lewis) had done so and passed as negative. Bond refused the test, calling Lewis' taunt a form of McCarthyism.
Bond was well spoken and, when younger, strikingly good looking. You thought that he was going to be a big deal, but his political career didn't amount to much. Chuck might be right that there's something about his backstory that we don't know. Bond probably would have been more successful if he had gone into acting or broadcasting........I watched snippets from the interview. It's pretty obvious that Bond had as many slaveowners as slaves in his ancestry and probably more. I'm also guessing that he had a much easier trip in cushier accommodations than Thomas. But he gets the street cred for bing the authentic black voice.
I will note that Bond was involved with one of the most dishonest and partisan of the "civil rights" organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Perhaps Bond preferred to be a big fish in the small pond of Georgia rather than a small fish in Washington D.C.?
Gahrie -
[Watch] Farrakhan Shouts “Allahu Akbar!” and “White People Deserve to Die” In Latest Sermon.
“Either you die or he dies,” Farrakhan said. “God is with you. That’s why we say, ‘Allah Akbar.’ God is great. We have no weapon. We bother nobody. Then if you come to take our life, don’t be surprised if you lose your own.”
I didn't put the words in his mouth. He said them. Maybe he converted to "real" Islam, now that wholesale slaughter of non-Muslims is all the rage.
I felt the same way about Julian Bond. I particularly admired him for showing up every day for the Georgia legislative sessions. He had won the election but the Georgia House refused to seat him. I was very disappointed by his later career.
Was really disappointed that a man with such promise turned into just another race-baiter.
I was impressed with the interview. Bond was gentle in his attempts to steer the topics to ways of thinking that suited him (Bond). They showed mutual respect even though they disagree on a really fundamental level.
I now admire Thomas even more than I already had and have some new found respect for Bond.
The conflict of black visions: Thomas focuses on the opportunities offered black people; Bond focuses on the opportunities - real and imagined - denied to black people.
If you spend all of your time looking for obstacles in your way you'll miss the opportunities you have.
That's the problem, isn't it? Not that there aren't obstacles that black people - as a whole - face. Or that there isn't racism. Or that the legacy of racism still is an anchor around black people.
I know, DuBois vs. Washington.
I forgot how white Bond was! That's likely one reason so many white liberals liked him so much. They felt comfortable with his Nice White Features.
The whole one-drop concept was ridiculous either way you look at it. Bond should have answered for his white privilege.
Well said, SMG.
A very revealing interview. Thomas is a remarkable man. Julian Bond seemed to have a few erroneous pre-conceived opinions of how he thought Thomas should think.
Surprisingly, Thomas' book "My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir"is not available on Kindle or Apple iBook.
Julian was over educated for Georgia society. He talked over the heads of the whites and the blacks.
But we admired his stubborn fighting attitude and suspected that was from his mostly from white ancestry in speech dialect, his skin color and cheekbones.
The black community must have thought so too because John Lewis who was as black as black comes in speech dialects and facial features defeated Julian in the nearly all black Fifth Congressional District ( Atlanta) and holds that seat till today.
Thomas' book is an incredible read. From it I learned that Barack Obama is seriously not black enough (I read it during the 2008 campaign).
Althouse commenter mtrobertsattorney had an interesting anecdote about Thomas, which he wrote in early July:
This doesn't surprise me a bit about Thomas' character. I read a story about him when he and his wife once stopped at a truck stop while they were on one of those cross-country "see America" trips. Anyway, J. Thomas noticed a long-haul trucker working on his big tractor engine and he was having trouble. Thomas walked over to him and after a short conversation both he and the trucker were working together on the that big diesel engine. And they got it running.
(Thomas worked as a large diesel mechanic as a young man and he loved it. He's often said that if he hadn't gone into law, he would be working on big diesel engines.)
Remember, there was a lot of questioning of Obama's blackness at the beginning. Or should I say African-American-ness? He was raised in a well-to-do white family, went to expensive private schools and fancy colleges, had no black American ancestors and certainly none that had ever been slaves. It's easy to forget now that the white lefty liberals were on board before black people fully came around.
Thomas' book also points out that the single mother of fame and legend is not the end of the road. His mother was a mess. It was his grandparents that saved him and his brother. One intact family may be enough.
And remember, a lying woman almost succeeded in taking Thomas out at the confirmation hearings.
The country dodged a Liberal bullet, there.
I know, DuBois vs. Washington.
That DuBois won is one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century.
I notice that the left discards the people who help them slime someone. Who has heard of Anita Hill in years?
Who has heard of the two women the Democrats found to slime Meg Whitman ? Nobody.
California might even be on the path to solvency if she was governor but it was more important to keep geriatric Jerry Brown in office and the check rolling to the PEUs.
He was the most unusual host of SNL.
Blogger Carol said...
I forgot how white Bond was!
That was the punchline in Mr Bond's contribution to imho the funniest moment in Saturday Night Live history
Thank you Ann for this video.
I have only listened to the first ten minutes, but it is a great video and, of course, shows Justice Thomas to be an exceptional person with an exceptional life story.
Bond seems fine to me in the interview. I don't know much about him, but the comments here are very negative.
Anyone have anything nice to say about him?
Julian Bond was better looking than he was capable. Liberals love a pretty face. Style over substance.
A vile, hateful man Bond was responsible for the reprehensible political ad accusing GWB of condoning the James Byrd racial murder.
He later pushed Kweise Mfume out of the NAACP because Mfume wanted to focus more on helping black Americans and Bond wanted to help Democrats get elected.
"That was the punchline in Mr Bond's contribution to imho the funniest moment in Saturday Night Live history."
I didn't think it was funny. I thought that a Black civil rights leader making self-referentially racist remarks was cringeworthy. After that show, I thought of Bond as a garden-variety attention whore.
I'm too young to have followed his career in the 60s and 70s. I do remember hearing his say as late as 2013 that the Teaparty was the "Taliban Wing" of the GOP. After hearing that, I had zero interest in anything else they man had to say.
10 years ago, I watched Bond give a commencement address at Loyola University in New Orleans.
It was pretty much the standard catalog of decades old grievances.
For instance, he went on and on about lynchings. There hasn't been a lynching for 70 years but the very day he gave the address, a young black man would be shot to death in New Orleans by another young black man.
I say that with confidence because every day, every day in New Orleans, you would open the paper and see a young man in the obituaries. They would give the street corner and the cause of death "gunshot wounds". That's it. It was no longer news.
"Hey Pal", I remember thinking, "You are in Show Business. Time to freshen up the act." He never did.
Any explanation for why Bond seemed so reasonable and respectful in his interview of Justice Thomas?
Once, a long time ago, upon my return to Philadelphia from a road trip, I shared an escalator ride with Julian Bond. We had arrived at 30th Street Station, probably on the same train and we were ascending into the Grand Hall of the station. He was about three yards above me.
KC, he didn't dare to do otherwise?
"Terry." If you got the vibe that Julian Bond would hate you for being "white," that vibe was coming from inside of you, not from Julian Bond.
"Kansas City;" Bond was reasonable and respectful in his interview of Justice Thomas because that was the way that Julian Bond always was. With everyone.
"Chuck" I can't imagine what you are talking about when you make the claim that Julian Bond made an early departure from public political life. Here's Bond's actual history in electoral politics; he served four terms in the Georgia House, and six terms in the Georgia Senate. Please note that is terms, not years.
BTW Gahrie: Malcolm X had excellent manners.
William and Leora, which aspects of Bond's later life do you find so disappointing. After his several decades as a legislator and before that as an activist and a leader within the Civil Rights Movement, having founded SNCC along with John Lewis, he continued writing and speaking out, and becoming a frequent guest on radio and television, while founding the Southern Poverty Center, which is neither dishonest or partisan. He became a regular commentator in print and on television, including as host of “America’s Black Forum,” then the oldest black-owned television program in syndication.
In his later years he taught at Harvard, Williams, Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania. He was a distinguished scholar in residence at American University in Washington and a professor of history at the University of Virginia, where he was co-director of the oral history project Explorations in Black Leadership.
BTW, as to relative difficulties Bond faced compared with Justice Thomas, yes, Bond came from an upper middle class family, but it is also true that all the young people who worked within the civil rights movement were literally risking their lives.
Patton said that only 2 percent of American GIs would die in the invasion. What percentage of the Freedom Riders or whoever died in the process of whatever they were doing?
I wonder if blacks ever consider that they could all have been executed at war's end?
That's ok, you will ignore such credentials as it suits, e.g. if Condoleezza Rice were to seek some public role. Colin Powell has been silent as the grave. The right, or any not of the left, have considerable pressures on speech, stultifying intrinsic thought and action, at high levels and low. Somehow the left avoid this, except from within themselves...
And a pimp has manners when it suits him.
Julian Bond did not do all he set out to do, but he did deliver a fine interview with a great man whom he likely opposed at all turns, without too much interruption and a nice sense of where he wasn't going to get one over after all. The dignity of his final years reflected well upon his Man Inside.
I mean, at the end of the Civil War.
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