Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research with the exception of Series X (boxes 133-134), which is restricted until further notice.

Preferred Citation

Julian Bond papers, MSS 13347, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

These papers were placed at the University of Virginia on deposit by Julian Bond on June 25, 2005. They were purchased from Julian Bond by the University of Virginia Library in March 2007.

Biographical/Historical Information

Julian Bond was born in Nashville, Tennessee on January 14, 1940, to educator, Dr. Horace Mann Bond and his wife, librarian Julia Washington Bond, who had traveled there from central Georgia to have her child. In 1940, Dr. Bond was president of Fort Valley State College, a black institution in central Georgia. Julian Bond attended primary school at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, where his father served as President, from 1945 until 1957, when Dr. Bond became dean of the School of Education at Atlanta University. His paternal grandparents were James Bond (1863-1929) born in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and Jane Alice Browne (1865-1938), born in Prince George County, Maryland.

He graduated in June 1957 from the George School, a co-educational Quaker preparatory school located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and entered Morehouse College in Atlanta in the fall. While in Atlanta, Bond founded the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR), the Atlanta University Center student organization that coordinated student protests against segregation in Atlanta for three years. In the summer of 1960, he also joined the staff of a new Atlanta weekly newspaper, The Atlanta Inquirer as a reporter and feature writer.

In January 1961, Julian Bond left Morehouse to become the Communications and Publicity Director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was organized in 1960 at a conference of sit-in students on the campus of Atlanta University. He held that position until September 1966, traveling to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas to help with civil rights drives and voter registration campaigns.

He served in Georgia's House of Representatives, Atlanta's 111th District, from 1966-1975 and in the Georgia State Senate from 1975-1987. Bond was first elected to a seat created by reapportionment in the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 but was prevented from taking office in January 1966 by members of the Georgia legislature objecting to his statements about the Vietnam War. After winning a second election in February 1966, a special House Committee again voted to bar him from office. Bond won a third election in November 1966, and in December the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Georgia House erred in not allowing him to take his seat in the legislature. On January 9, 1967, he was finally allowed to take the oath of office as a member of the Georgia House of Representative.

In 1968, Bond was Co-Chairman of the Georgia Loyal National Delegation to the Democratic Convention. The Loyalists were successful in unseating the hand-picked regulars and Bond was even nominated as the Democratic Party's first black candidate for Vice-President of the United States, but he was too young to serve. He also considered his own campaign for President in 1975-1976, taking preliminary steps to run for office.

More recently, he has taught popular Civil Rights history courses at American University (beginning in 1991) and the University of Virginia (beginning in 1990), and served as Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from February 1998 until the present. Bond has served on many national boards and committees, including serving as the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971 and continuing as President Emeritus; President of the Atlanta NAACP from 1978-1989; and President and Founder of the Southern Elections Fund (SEF), among many others.

Scope and Content

This collection consists of the political and personal papers of Civil Rights activist, Georgia State Senator and Representative, and professor, Julian Bond (1940-), ca. 1897-2006, with copies of earlier material, consisting of ca. 47,000 items (134 Hollinger boxes, 1 Card File Box and 3 Oversize boxes, ca. 60 linear feet).

The first series, containing articles, speeches, and papers written and delivered by Julian Bond, is arranged by date if present or by an approximate date based on the subject or other internal evidence. When there is no title present on the document, the item is identified by its subject, place of delivery, or place of publication. Series one includes multiple drafts of various speeches; articles appearing eventually in print; statements and testimony before hearings, etc.; and tributes. The information in the box listing of the guide is sometimes more comprehensive than that recorded on the folder headings themselves.

The second series consists of various types of correspondence, often with the carbon of Julian Bond's response. Some years have only the carbon of Bond's response and not the original letter. These include arrangements for speaking engagements and political appearances, even though most events were arranged for him by the American Program Bureau (see separate correspondence in Boxes 61-65); correspondence with constituents concerning issues before the Georgia legislature; requests for his photograph and biographical sketch; correspondence with political representatives from other states concerning issues of common interest before the United States Congress; correspondence with members of organizations, such as the Southern Regional Council, asking for their advice or input concerning various ideas for publications or activities that he is considering; a few topical correspondence files, such as the issue of sterilization, South Africa, and the Angela Davis case; and Georgia politics.

Other types of correspondence include derogatory or racist "crank" mail; general requests including political memorabilia, research information, copies of speeches and articles by Bond, autographs, permissions to reprint poems, articles, etc., and requests for speaking appearances (which overlaps somewhat with the regular chronological correspondence files and the American Program Bureau files).

The third series includes papers and correspondence from members of various organizations concerned with voting rights, civil rights and minority issues. The largest groups of material include the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), National Urban League, the Southern Elections Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, Southern Regional Council, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Voter Education Project.

Julian Bond's popularity as a political and civil rights speaker is evidenced by the fourth series which includes general invitations, his contracts and correspondence with the American Program Bureau, and his Political Associates files. The organization, Political Associates, is defined in a 1971 proposal as "an all-black Atlanta, Georgia based research group headed by Georgia State Representative Julian Bond" which is "initiating intensive investigations into the way black politicians - and black politics-operate."

The fifth series, Academic Papers, Speeches, and Writings, chiefly by other people, is arranged by type of material and then by author, and includes articles; books; class packets; a dissertation; interviews with Julian Bond by John Britton, William Chafe, Trevor L. Chandler, Marsha Darling, Jeffrey M. Elliot, Elizabeth Gritter, Megan Lisagor, Ulysses Prince, Plater Robinson, Thomas Rose and John Greenya, and Mr. Scavullo; papers by various scholars; poems; reports; speeches by others; student papers, many about Julian Bond; and theses.

The sixth series, political papers, is divided into a general group, which includes a lot of material about his own campaigns, Atlanta elections, endorsements and planning for black candidates, the Democratic National Committee and Conventions of 1968 and 1972, the Georgia and National Democratic parties, Georgia politics, and files on voting rights activities; and a second subseries, entirely concerned with his bid for the United States presidency in 1976.

Topical files comprise the seventh series, including both correspondence and papers about various topics of interest to Julian Bond or of use in his courses on the history of Civil Rights. Also included are files on the relationship of the Barnes Foundation and Lincoln University, once headed by Bond's father, Dr. Horace Mann Bond. Subseries B of the seventh series includes course evaluations, outlines, syllabi, research material, and lecture notes for courses taught by Julian Bond at The American University, Harvard University, and the University of Virginia.

Series eight, Family and Personal Papers, includes two subseries, the first concerning Julian Bond and the second, his extended family. His personal papers contain appointment books, activities and programs he attended, artifacts and memorabilia, honors and awards, correspondence with his family, financial files, and photographs, divided as much as possible into topics. The Bond Family subseries is chiefly concerned with Bond's parents, Horace Mann Bond and Julia Bond.

The ninth series, Publicity, includes columns written by Bond, his Georgia State Legislature newsletters, general news clippings, clippings about Julian Bond, and press releases and statements. The tenth series consists of restricted materials. The eleventh and last series consists of all audiovisual materials found in the collection, which are also catalogued individually and given a separate number.

Arrangement

Any original order has been preserved as much as possible. Files with no discernible order have been organized with similar types of material. These papers are arranged in eleven series, including:
Series I: Articles, Papers and Speeches by Julian Bond, arranged by date (Boxes 1-12)
Series II: Correspondence, including those labeled "Reading Files" (Boxes 12-36)
Series III: Organizations (Boxes 37-61)
Series IV: Invitations, Political Associates, and American Program Bureau Papers (Boxes 61-72)
Series V: Academic Papers, Speeches, and Writings, chiefly by Others, arranged by type of material and then by author (Boxes 73-80)
Series VI: Political Papers, with two subseries:
Subseries A: General (Boxes 80-93)
Subseries B: Campaign for President 1976 (Boxes 94-98)
Series VII: Topical Files, with two subseries:
Subseries A: General (Boxes 98-110)
Subseries B: Academic Course Evaluations and Lectures (Boxes 110-112)
Series VIII: Family and Personal Papers, including Photographs
Subseries A: Julian Bond (Boxes 113-122)
Subseries B: Bond Family Papers (123-126)
Series IX: Publicity including Newsletters, Press Releases, and News clippings (Boxes 127-132)
Series X: Restricted (Boxes 133-134)
Series XI: Audiovisual Materials