Julian Bond, a world-renowned member of the U.S. civil rights movement, speaks on the role the law has played in both encouraging and thwarting that movement, beginning with the seminal Supreme Court decision of *Brown v. Board of Education* (1954). While Brown in many ways gave life to the civil rights movement in this country, Mr. Bond discusses how legal developments continuing to the present day have served at times in fact to discourage progress in that movement. His presentation includes his personal involvement with legal developments in the civil rights movement and his own case involving his seat in the Georgia legislature--a case that ultimately ended up before the Supreme Court.
From his student days to his current Chairmanship of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Julian Bond has been an active participant in the movements for civil rights and economic justice. As an activist who has faced jail for his convictions, as a veteran of more than 20 years service in the Georgia General Assembly, a university professor and a writer, he has been on the cutting edge of social change since 1960. He was a founder, in 1960 while a student at Morehouse College of the Atlanta student sit-in and anti-segregation organization and of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As SNCC's Communications Director, Bond was active in protests and registration campaigns throughout the South. Bond serves as Chairman of the Premier Auto Group PAG (Volvo, Land Rover, Aston-Martin, and Jaguar) Diversity Council and is on the Boards of People for the American Way, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council for a Livable World, and the advisory board of the Harvard Business School Initiative on Social Enterprise, among others. He was a commentator on America's Black Forum, the oldest black-owned show in television syndication. His poetry and articles have appeared in numerous publications. He has narrated numerous documentaries, including the Academy Award winning "A Time For Justice" and the prize-winning and critically acclaimed series "Eyes On The Prize." He has served since 1998 as Chairman of the Board of the NAACP, the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States. In 2002, he received the prestigious National Freedom Award. The holder of twenty-five honorary degrees, he is a Distinguished Professor at American University in Washington, DC, and a Professor in history at the University of Virginia