MonticelloLive

Julian Bond, the chairman of the board of the NAACP and one of the most important figures of the American civil rights movement, will deliver the 2008 Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture at the University of Arkansas at Monticello on Thursday, March 27.
            Bond will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the UAM Fine Arts Center auditorium. The lecture will conclude with a question-and-answer session with the audience, followed by a reception and book signing in the Spencer Gallery of the Fine Arts Center.
            The event is free and open to the public.
            Bond served 20 years in the Georgia General Assembly and was one of the founders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960’s. His book, A Time To Speak, A Time To Act, is a collection of essays and will be available for purchase after the lecture.
            Elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, Bond was prevented from taking his seat by members who objected to his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was re-elected to his own vacant seat and unseated a second time. He was re-seated only after a third election and a unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
            In 1968, Bond was co-chair of a challenge delegation from Georgia, which sought to unseat Georgia’s regular Democrats at the Democratic Convention. The challenge was successful and Bond was nominated for vice-president at the convention, a position he declined because he was too young to serve.
            Bond has taught at several universities, including Williams, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, American, and the University of Virginia. He holds 23 honorary degrees and is currently a Distinguished Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., as well as professor of history at the University of Virginia.
            Since 1998, Bond has served as chairman of the board of the NAACP, the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States.
            Bond’s lecture is sponsored by a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture Series, established in 1972 to provide funding to assist campuses of the UA System in bringing outstanding lecturers to the state.