Civil rights icon Julian Bond dies at 75

He was 75 and had experienced a brief illness, according to an Associated Press report.

The announcement came in a statement titled “We’ve lost a champion,” written by Morris Dees, co-founder of the civil rights organization SPLC. “With Julian’s passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice,” he wrote. “He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person subject to oppression and discrimination, because he recognized the common humanity in us all.”

“Julian Bond was a hero and, I’m privileged to say, a friend,” said President Obama in a statement Sunday morning. “Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life — from his leadership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to his founding role with the Southern Poverty Law Center, to his pioneering service in the Georgia legislature and his steady hand at the helm of the NAACP. Michelle and I have benefited from his example, his counsel, and his friendship — and we offer our prayers and sympathies to his wife, Pamela, and his children.”

“Julian Bond helped change this country for the better,” Obama added. “And what better way to be remembered than that.”

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Sunday afternoon the president called Bond’s wife, Pamela Horowitz, to offer condolences to her and the family.

Bond was born in Nashville, Tenn., and was raised in Pennsylvania where his father became the first African American president of Lincoln University, his alma mater. He attended and graduated from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, and helped found the found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960.

He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1965 to 1975 and the state senate from 1975 to 1986.

Bond then ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and lost to another civil rights figure, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga. He served as founding president of the SPLC and spent 11 years as NAACP chairman. He also taught at prestigious universities like American and Harvard universities and the University of Virginia.

Several prominent political and civil rights figures commented on Bond’s passing Sunday morning.

Rep. Lewis, D-Ga., sent out a series of tweets Sunday morning, noting in one “Julian was so smart, so gifted, and so talented. He was deeply committed to making our country a better country” and “Julian Bond’s leadership and his spirit will be deeply missed” in another.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., tweeted “More later, but must express now profound grief at losing Julian Bond. Friend, civil rights leader, constituent and #DCStatehood champion.”

Julian is survived by his wife, Pamela, a former SPLC staff attorney, his five children, brother and sister.

More tweets about Bond’s passing are shown below: