97-05-09 Julian Bond to Speak at Humanities Baccalaureate

PUBLIC INVITED TO HEAR JULIAN BOND

     COLUMBUS - Civil rights leader and statesman Julian Bond
will speak on The Ohio State University campus on Thursday, June
5.  Bond is the featured speaker at the College of Humanities
Baccalaureate, the college’s annual celebration of the
achievements of students, faculty, staff, and alumni, which
begins at 4 p.m. in Weigel Hall, 1866 College Road.  The event is
free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

     Bond is perhaps best known as an active participant in the
movements for civil rights, economic justice, and peace, and as
an aggressive spokesman for the disinherited.  A graduate of
Morehouse College, he was one of several hundred students from
across the South who helped to form the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee in 1960.  That year he also helped to
found the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR), the
Atlanta University Center student civil rights organization that
directed three years of non-violent anti-segregation protests
which resulted in the integration of Atlanta’s movie theaters,
lunch counters, and parks.  Bond was arrested for sitting in at
the then-segregated cafeteria in Atlanta City Hall.

     Bond is on the faculty at the University of Virginia, where
he teaches courses on the history of the civil rights movement
and Southern Black politics.  He also is a Distinguished
Professor in Residence at American University.  He has been a
visiting professor at Williams College, Occidental College,
Harvard University, and at Drexel University, and was a Pappas
Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

     From 1965-1974 Bond was a member of the Georgia House of
Representatives, where he authored more than 60 bills which
became law, including a sickle cell anemia testing program and a
state-wide low interest home loan program for low-income
Georgians.  A member of the Georgia State Senate from 1974-1986,
Bond chaired the Committee on Consumer Affairs and the Fulton
County Senate Delegation, Senate Committee on Consumer Affairs.

     Bond is the host of America’s Black Forum, a weekly news
program, the oldest Black-owned show in television syndication.
In 1996 he wrote and narrated Crossing the Color Line:  From
Rhythm ’n’ Blues to Rock ’n’ Roll, a series of four documentaries
for National Public Radio.  He narrated A Time for Justice, which
won an Academy Award for best short documentary, as well as
numerous other public radio documentaries on such topics as the
world food crisis, the murder of Medgar Evers, and the civil
rights movement.

     Bond serves on a number of boards, including the NAACP, the
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Fund, Southerners for Economic
Justice, New Democratic Coalition, and Campaign for America’s
Future.  He also is an evaluator for the Division of Preservation
and Research for the National Endowment for the Humanities.  He
is the author of numerous articles on slavery, the war on
poverty, voting rights, fair lending, and equality, for which he
has received fourteen honorary degrees and numerous awards.

                             #

Contact:  Shari Lorbach, College of Humanities, (614) 292-1882.


[Submitted by: Von Vargas  (vargas.12@osu.edu)
               
Fri, 9 May 1997 09:26:14 -0400 (EDT)]
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