The HistoryMakers® Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond
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| Repository: | The HistoryMakers |
| 1900 S. Michigan Avenue |
| Chicago, Illinois 60616 |
| (312) 674-1900 |
| info@thehistorymakers.com |
| http://www.thehistorymakers.com |
| Interviewer: | Julieanna Richardson |
| Videographer: | |
| Title: | Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond |
| Dates: | April 21, 2000 |
| Abstract: | (ABSTRACT) |
| Quantity: | 6 Betacam SP videocassettes, 1 half-Hollinger box containing (NUMBER) folders of accompanying materials. |
| Identification: | A2000.008 |
| Language: | The interviews and records are in English |
Civil rights activist and politician Julian Bond was born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee. He and his family moved to Pennsylvania, where his father, Horace Mann Bond, was appointed president of Lincoln University.
In 1960, Bond was one of several hundred students who helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1965, Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He was barred from taking his seat due to his outspoken statements against the Vietnam War. In December 1966, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor and he served four terms as a state representative and six terms in the Georgia State Senate. During the 1968 presidential election, he was the first African American to be nominated for vice president of the United States. He withdrew his name from the ballot, however, because he was too young to serve. Later, Bond hosted America's Black Forum.
Bond continues his tradition of activism as chairman of the NAACP. He also serves as president emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Bond is a distinguished scholar in residence at American University in Washington, D.C., and a faculty member in the History Department at the University of Virginia.
Biographical Note by The HistoryMakers®
This life oral history interview with Julian Bond was conducted by Julieanna Richardson on 2000-04-21 in Washington, D.C. and is recorded on 6 30-minute Betacam SP videocassettes. Access copies exist on Betacam SP, VHS, DVD and MPEG-1. The interview contains information on (COMPLETE ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION OF INTERVIEW). Accompanying materials in the collection include Julian Bond's correspondence with The HistoryMakers® related to the interview; a copy of the signed release form and the production report; the biographical information used by the interviewer to prepare for the interview (DETAILS); paper copies of the interview transcripts, 3 1/2" floppy disks with electronic copies of the transcripts; selected quotes for video clips; photocopies of photographs captured on video; XML files with metadata created in editing and cataloguing the interview for The HistoryMakers Digital Video Library; and paper copies of these XML files.
Restrictions on Access
Access to paper records is restricted. Other restrictions may be applied on a case-by-case basis.
Restrictions on Use
All use of materials must be pre-approved by The HistoryMakers® and appropriate credit must be given. All use credits must be pre-approved by The HistoryMakers®. Copyright is held by The HistoryMakers®.
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| This record series is indexed under the following controlled access terms. |
| Contributors: |
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| | Bond, Julian |
| | Richardson, Julieanna |
| Persons: |
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| Corporate Bodies: |
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| Family Names: |
| | Bond |
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| Subjects: |
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| Document Types: |
| | Video oral history interview |
| Titles: |
| | The HistoryMakers® Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond |
Accompanying materials: Accompanying materials are filed in (NUMBER) folders in a half-Hollinger box and shelved at The HistoryMakers® Archives and Collection Library by accession number, separately from the videos.
Betacam, VHS, DVD and MPEG-1 access copies are held for in-house use at The HistoryMakers®; Betacam SP, VHS and DVD playback hardware is provided for in-house viewing of the access copies; MPEG-1 copies are searchable and viewable via a digital video database.
The HistoryMakers® Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, April 21, 2000. The HistoryMakers® African American Video Oral History Collection, 1900 S. Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois.
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 1, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:29:20.
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| Julian Bond talks about his family background of elite, highly-educated African Americans--examples of the "Talented Tenth"--a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois who was, in fact, a friend of the family. Bond's grandfather, James Bond, born in slavery, became one of the organizers of the Lincoln Institute, created after Kentucky forced Berea College to segregate. Julian Bond's father, Horace Mann Bond, was the first president of Fort Valley State College in Georgia and the first black president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Bond's mother Julia Washington was a Fisk graduate and the daughter of a Nashville school principal. He discusses his father's views on educational policies for African Americans. Bond speaks of his parents with admiration and affection, and he fondly recalls his childhood on the college campuses where his father worked. He describes his small elementary school in Pennsylvania, which only became integrated due to a lawsuit filed by his father; he himself was not very conscious of segregation in his childhood. At twelve, Bond went away to a Quaker boarding school, the George School, which was racially integrated, although he was one of a handful of black students. His first year was a difficult adjustment, but he ended up enjoying the five years he spent there. He also says he was very attracted to the Quakers' racially progressive philosophy and their emphasis on community service; through Quakerism he first learned about nonviolence and social action, and realised that young people like himself could make a difference. He also discusses his social life at the George School, which included dances and malt shop visits. |
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 2, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:30:05.
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| Julian Bond recalls the end of his time in high school, including a romance with a white classmate from the George School, the Quaker boarding school he attended in Pennsylvania. He discusses his aspiration to become a writer, inspired by his father, the well-respected scholar and college president Horace Mann Bond. Julian Bond admired his father's meticulous marshalling of facts to prove a point, and gives as an example a speech his father gave in response to racist claims about black intellectual inferiority in which the elder Bond was able to cite statistics showing that higher IQ test scores was linked more closely to indoor plumbing than to race. Julian Bond relates his family's move in 1957 to Atlanta, Georgia, where he enrolled at Morehouse College. He describes the excitement he felt at being among such a large group of black students from several colleges and the vibrant atmosphere of Atlanta's African American community with a great variety of retail and entertainment establishments. In 1960 the student lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina inspired black students all over the country to form their own civil rights organizations. Bond was one of the organizers of the Atlanta student movement and penned an "Appeal for Human Rights" listing many areas of grievance published in the local papers. When the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was organized and headquartered in Atlanta, he became the Communications Director. Bond explains SNCC's ideas about local, grass-roots leadership, and he traces their "tremendous record of achievements" over the decade of the 1960s, and their influence in civil rights, politics, labor and even foreign relations. |
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 3, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:29:00.
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| Julian Bond recalls his experiences as a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and later as a lawmaker in the Georgia legislature. He tells about the founding of SNCC in 1960 and their desire from the start to be independent of the other civil rights organizations. SNCC opposed the ceding of power to strong national leadership figures, instead believing strongly in grassroots organizing and self-empowerment. By 1965 SNCC was encouraging rural African Americans--who had only recently won the right to vote--to run for public office. Bond himself ran for the Georgia state legislature, with a campaign staff of SNCC people whose great experience organizing and communicating with people helped him win his election. But, incensed by a recent SNCC anti-war statement, the legislature refused to seat him. Bond recounts the ensuing year-long battle that finally ended in a Supreme Court order that he be seated. Bond quit SNCC in mid-1966, uncomfortable with the separatist direction in which it was heading, especially with the decision to kick out its white members. In 1967, by order of the U.S. Supreme Court, he finally joined the state legislature, which did not endear him to many of its white representatives. Bond describes learning the culture of the institution and eventually gaining acceptance in the body that had thrown him out. He later won a seat in the more prestigious state senate. Bond animatedly tells about his experiences as a legislator and says he much enjoyed the legislative process as well as being able to help constituents. |
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 4, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:31:05.
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| Julian Bond talks about his experience as a state legislator, his bitter 1987 Congressional campaign loss and his work in recent years as a university teacher. Bond believes that picking his battles carefully and focusing his energy enabled him to achieve his successes in the Georgia state legislature--such as the creation of a black Congressional district in Atlanta. He reflects on the hard-fought Congressional campaign for election in the district he had been instrumental in creating and his "crushing" loss to fellow civil rights veteran John Lewis. Bond speaks frankly about this low period in his life, during which he dealt with not only the end of his long political career but also the break-up of his marriage of many years. Since the late 1980s Julian Bond has been teaching courses on the Civil Rights Movement at various universities. He found that he loves teaching and he feels encouraged that history is now being taught with a greater focus on grassroots level activists. He reflects on the challenges in teaching today's youth about the segregation and oppression he and others fought forty years ago. He "absolutely rejects" the idea that things are no better--or are even worse--today, believing that such statements completely ignore how terrible the past really was.The fact that some people have not been able to take advantage of the possibilities created by the Civil Rights Movement, says Bond, means "we just have more work to do." |
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 5, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:24:16.
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| Julian Bond discusses the recent past of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP] as well as his hopes for the organization under his leadership as chairman; he would like the group to move back toward its original mission of social justice rather than social services. |
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Video Oral History Interview with Julian Bond, Tape 6, April 21, 2000, TRT: 00:10:12.
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| Various photographs from Julian Bond's personal collection, including photos of Bond as a child with his family, as a young civil rights activist in the 1960s, during his career as a State legislator in Georgia, with other state and national political figures, and more recent photos from the 1990s. |