PHOTOS: Julian Bond — denied but not defeated

Politics

PHOTOS: Julian Bond — denied but not defeated

Julian Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives at the age of 25. As a Black man in 1965, he was not allowed to take the oath. Bond took the case to the Supreme Court.

Julian Bond was not allowed to take the oath at the Georgia state legislature in January 1966 after winning the election in 1965. He ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives after a round of redistricting following the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. (Bill Wilson/AJC file)

Two photos show as Julian Bond (left), with his attorney Howard Moore, observes the vote going against Bond to take the oath at the first day of the Georgia state legislature. (Marion Crowe/AJC file)

Shortly after his election, SNCC wrote a press release opposing the Vietnam War. While Representative-elect Julian Bond didn't write the release, he did support it in an interview.
His House colleagues, led by Rep. James Floyd, said this was reason enough to block Bond from being sworn in. (Bill Wilson/AJC file)

After Bond's seat was vacated because he wasn't allowed to take the oath of office, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others marched to the Capitol to protest a few days later. (Horace Cort/AP file)

Demonstraters protest the decision to not seat elected representative Julian Bond in January 1966. (Ken Patterson/AJC file)

Eugene Patterson, editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution during Julian Bond's legislative controversy, rebuked the decision not to seat Bond in a series of front-page editorials. Patterson won a Pulitizer Prize on the strength of his writing about the Civil Rights movement.

Julian Bond (right) arrives at court in 1966. He filed a federal suit against State Rep. James Floyd. Bond lost the case. However, he took his appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court, winning in December of 1966. He took his oath in January of 1967. (AJC file)

Julian Bond (left) and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (right) casting their ballots to fill Bond's vacant seat in Atlanta, on Feb. 23, 1966. Bond was re-elected two more times by his district, but he was still not allowed to serve in the legislature until the Supreme Court decision. (AP file)

In 1968, Bond led an alternate delegation from Georgia to the Democratic National Convention, where he became the first Black person nominated for vice president of the United States. At the age of 28, he was too young. (AP file)

Delegate Jack Dorsey of Tucker, Ga., holds up a sign reading "This is Maddox Country", proclaiming his views concerning which Georgia delegation — the one headed by Gov. Lester G. Maddox or that led by Julian Bond — is entitled to represent the state at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 27, 1968 in Chicago. (AP file)

Julian Bond (center), leader of an alternate Georgia delegation which was seated by the Democratic National Convention in 1968, casts the delegation's first vote on a contest involving rival Alabama delegations. (AP file)

Bond served in the Geogia House for 4 terms. (AJC file)

Bond served 6 terms as a state senator from 1975 to 1986. (Billy Downs/AJC file 1981)

Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks campaigns for Julian Bond in his bid for Congress in 1986. (Nick Arroyo/AJC file)

Bond's congressional bid fell short in 1986 to fellow Civil Rights icon and friend, John Lewis. (Kenneth Walker/AJC file)

“Race Man: The Collected Works of Julian Bond” was published in 2020. Before his death, Bond said he wanted to be remembered as such: "On one side (of his headstone), I wanted to say 'race man', and that means a man who doesn't dislike other races, but who's proud of his own and wants to lift it up." (Courtesy of City Lights Publishers)

After leaving political office, Bond went on to teach at universities and became the chair of the NAACP in 1998, serving 11 years. (Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American-Statesman)

Julian Bond, a Civil Rights titan and longtime leader of the NAACP, died in 2015 at the age of 75. (AP file)

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Credit: Special Collections and Archives

Julian Bond was not allowed to take the oath at the Georgia state legislature in January 1966 after winning the election in 1965. He ran for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives after a round of redistricting following the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. (Bill Wilson/AJC file)

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