The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A lesser-known civil rights leader
Julian Bond wound up recording history of movement he helped lead.
With last week’s 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, during the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, much attention was paid to the movement’s iconic civil rights leaders, among them John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, the labor organizer Asa Phillip Randolph and, of course, Dr. King.
I believe my friend and mentor, the now-late Julian Bond, deserves a rightful place among these towering individuals. He was one of the 250,000 protesters, working alongside Mr. Lewis at SNCC, a sponsoring organization. He distributed copies of the speeches made by Dr. King and others to the media. He also gave Coca-colas to the many celebrities there, including Sammy Davis Jr., who smiled and said, “Thanks, kid.”
These were modest tasks. But Julian Bond’s achievements in the civil rights movement — and in my life, personally and professionally — were extraordinary.
People must remember that Professor Bond led sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters. In 1965, he was one of eight African Americans elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, integrating that legislative body for the first time since Reconstruction. He served as chairman of the NAACP for more than a decade. And, among others,
he was the plaintiff in Bond vs. Floyd, a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that legislatures could not sanction lawmakers for being critical of their own government. Recently, that case was brought to the fore when two Tennessee lawmakers were wrongfully expelled from that state’s legislature.
For me, Professor Bond was much more than these accomplishments. My parents gave me life, but he taught me what to do with it. I met him my first year at the University of Virginia. For one of the first times in my life, it didn’t matter that I was a woman. He cared about my mind and the quality of my thoughts.
He told me that my purpose was to be a disciple of civil rights because I understood it better than my peers. I had a responsibility to teach them.
On August 15, 2015, I was about to start at Harvard, and was excited. Professor Bond had written me a recommendation and we were exchanging emails while he was in the airport with his wife, Pam. His last words to me were, “You will shine.”
He transitioned from this world that day and the bottom fell out for me. Life suddenly became real and decisions more final. I didn’t know until he was gone, but for 10 years, he was my safety net. He made me feel like maybe I wouldn’t have to work in a factory in Mississippi to pay bills. I knew if I needed something, he had me. Suddenly, no one had me anymore. I felt alone.
For a decade, Professor Bond trained me in civil rights.
He would read me the emails he received from people, asking for help. He would quiz me on what I would do if I were him. At times, I’d answer in some not compelling way, and he would reply, “Well, this is what I would do.” That’s how he taught me how to think through crises.
I had no idea that years later, as founder of JULIAN, the nonprofit civil and human rights legal organization I named for him, I would receive emails just like those and would have to strategize my own responses.
We talked extensively about the history of the civil rights movement, law school and all the things he didn’t want to talk about, even boys. Often, we would just sit and watch videos of The Temptations dancing as he tried to imitate them (He couldn’t.). He would play clips of Dave Chappelle sketches and watch me laugh before lecturing me about how I shouldn’t have found a specific topic funny. And very few people knew how impish his sense of humor was.
More importantly, Professor Bond never let me take it easy or make excuses. He lambasted me when I skipped class. He pushed me to my limit to study for the Law School Admission Test, and when things were falling apart for me, he forced me out of my “rut,” as he called it. But he also pushed me to feel every feeling to the fullest. He would ask me often if I cried and would remind me that when I did feel the urge, I needed to let the tears roll. I didn’t think I’d ever stop crying when I learned of his death.
I was not the only one who cried that day. It is largely because of Professor Bond that we know civil rights history — a history that some states are now trying to ban. For a long time, he was the only communications director of the civil rights movement. It was his job to make sure the media got the story from those most impacted. It was his job to make sure the narrative was told by “the lion rather than the hunter — that until the story of the defeated is told, the victor is the one glorified.”
It was Professor Bond’s job to record history. It is our job to ensure his history is forever recorded in the annals of civil rights leadership in America.
Jill Collen Jefferson is founder and president of JULIAN, a nonprofit civil rights and international human rights legal organization. Prior to her legal career, she researched civil rights cold cases, was one of four speechwriters on President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, and served in various roles on Capitol Hill, at The White House and on national and state political campaigns, think tanks and advocacy nonprofits.