By Sean Yoes
AFRO Staff Writer
(November 18, 2008) - Long-time civil rights icon Julian Bond announced he will step down as national board chairman of the NAACP. He will serve out his final term through February 2009 and not seek reelection.
“This is the time for renewal. We have dynamic new leadership,” Bond said in a statement. “The country has a new President in Barack Obama; the organization has a new CEO in Benjamin Jealous, and we’ll soon have a new Chairman of the NAACP Board. The NAACP and the country are in good hands.”
The NAACP said that Bond informed board members in a letter that, although he would not run for reelection as chairman of the national board, he will remain on the board and run for reelection to the board when his three-year term ends.
“It has always been my plan to serve until the Centennial which will be underway in February when my term ends,” said Bond, referring to the centennial celebration of the birth of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization.
“I’m not resigning. I’m just not running for reelection.”
Bond was elected chairman of the board of the NAACP in 1998. But he began his career in the Civil Rights Movement when, as student at then Morehouse College in 1960, he was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNNC). From 1960 to 1963, Bond led student protests against segregated public facilities in Georgia.
In 1965, Bond was one of eight Blacks elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. However, Georgia state representatives voted 184-12 not to seat him because of his support of SNNC’s opposition to the Vietnam War.
But in 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Georgia House denied Bond his right to free speech and they were forced to seat him. He went on to serve four terms in the Georgia House from 1965 to 1975 and six terms in the Georgia Senate from 1975-1986.
Bond, 68, said it was time for him to step back from the rigors of being the organization’s chairman.
“Being Chairman has been a wonderful honor however; it has been more time demanding than anything I’ve ever done,” Bond said. “I’m ready to let a new generation of leaders lead.”