Extended Interview: Watch the Video

His great-grandmother was a slave brought to Kentucky as a wedding gift for her owner. His grandfather, James Bond, was a minister born into slavery in Lawrenceburg. His grandfather graduated from Berea College and later became a founding staff member of Lincoln Institute in Shelby County, an all-black school founded by the Berea trustees after the Day Law forced them to stop educating black and white students together.

Julian Horace Bond, born in 1940, was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta when he dropped out in 1960 to become the public affairs officer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. (He later returned and completed his degree.) In 1965, he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. But because of his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, he was ejected from the legislature. In 1968, as one of the leaders of the antiwar/civil rights coalition within the Democratic Party, he was nominated for the vice presidency at the Chicago Democratic Convention. Bond stepped back into electoral politics in 1987, losing a bitterly contested congressional race to his friend and fellow activist John Lewis.

In addition to his political activism, Bond has made a name for himself as a scholar and historian. He holds 19 honorary degrees and is a professor of history at the University of Virginia and a distinguished professor at American University in Washington, DC. He is the chair of the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Living the Story > Biographies > Julian Bond