Rights legend Julian Bond says work must go on
Legendary civil rights leader Julian Bond was in Buffalo on Thursday, reaching out to members of a younger generation and urging them to stay vigilant when it comes to civil rights issues despite historic advances made with the election of President Obama.
“One man’s climb to the mountaintop does not mean the climb is over for the rest of us,” Bond said. “We need to keep our feet on the ground, even as our heads are in the clouds.”
Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was the keynote speaker for the Leadership Lecture Series at Buffalo State College, where he addressed a few hundred people Thursday afternoon in Rockwell Hall.
Bond talked about the long struggle for equality for African- Americans, a movement he has watched from the front lines, whether it was while leading protests in the South during the early 1960s, serving as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center or acting as chairman of the NAACP since 1998.
While Bond talked about how far the civil rights movement in America has come, he reminded students how far there is to go.
“It has been less than 45 years that all black Americans have exercised their rights as full citizens,” Bond said. “We are such a young nation. Only my father’s generation stands between Julian Bond and slavery.”
Bond said the importance of Obama’s election can’t be overstated, but he pointed to the numerous issues still facing a disproportionate number of the nation’s blacks: poverty, lack of health insurance, incarceration and the loss of homes from the subprime mortgage crisis.
At the same time, he said, there’s a rise in hate groups since the start of the decade.
“Racism has a nasty habit of never going away, no matter how much we want it to,” Bond said. “That’s why we need to be ever vigilant.”
Bond prodded the students and other members of the audience to join the NAACP — regardless of color — noting that the organization’s fight for equality has benefited everyone from gays to the elderly to the disabled.
“Anyone who shares our values is welcome,” he said. “When we wage battles for equality, we expand democracy for all.”
Bond spoke for about an hour before taking questions from students, whose parents’ generation is probably more familiar with the 69-year-old Bond than they are.
One asked about the differences between students today and during Bond’s generation.
Students today, Bond said, seem to be more focused on social service — organizing clothing drives or rebuilding dilapidated homes — where students of his generation emphasized social justice.
“One isn’t better than the other. It’s just I would hope you give equal weight to social justice,” Bond said. “If you have social justice, you don’t need social service.”
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