Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Wilmington, N.C. - Many people in America may believe that the issue of race is history, but according to civil rights leader Julian Bond, they have it backwards.

To Bond, American history is race. With just 40 years behind us since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he said, Americans are too quick to assume that equality has been achieved in our nation. As the grandson of a slave, Bond said he knows there is still much work to be done.

"That history is far from ancient," he said. "Only my father's generation stands between Julian Bond and human bondage. Two-hundred and forty years of slavery was followed by 100 years of state-sanctioned segregation. It's been only 40 years since the rights and legal protections of the Constitution were extended to all Americans."

Speaking to a capacity crowd yesterday as part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Bond related the struggles of the civil rights movement to the issues confronting Americans today, including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The handling of that disaster and the racial implications of it, he said, caused a loss of moral authority for the U.S. both at home and abroad.

"There's no better way to examine the state of race in President Bush's America than to examine Katrina and the lessons it has to teach us," he said. "Unlike the revolution, Katrina was televised and what viewers saw was a deluge of degradation and despair.

"It teaches us the consequences of anti-government government, in which the role of the government to protect the people is destroyed."

Bond noted that 38 million Americans live in poverty today, which represents about 13 percent of the population. The top 20 percent of wage earners take more than half of the nation's income, while the bottom 20 percent of workers receive just 3.4 percent of the wealth. Many of the people in that bottom 20 percent are minorities, he said, which reinforces the need for Affirmative Action.

"People argue that today America is color blind despite reams of evidence to the contrary," he said. "Sadly, in America equal opportunity is color coded. As long as race counts, we've got to count race."

Bond ended his speech with a call to action for supporters of social justice and equality across the nation, reminding the audience that the civil rights movement began with acts of everyday courage such as refusing to give up a seat on the bus. It's not enough, he said, just to do good, just to feed the hungry or house the homeless, even though those are commendable acts. His message was clear: creating change requires challenging power.

"Sometimes it is the simplicity of everyday, ordinary acts that can change the universe," he said. "They can change the way we think and act. There's much, much more to be done but we've never wished our way to freedom.

"We believe that colored people come in all colors. The promise is that the coalition for justice will grow larger and stronger as new allies join the fight. Together, we create a mighty force for right."

UNCW Media Contact: Dana Fischetti, manager of news and media services, 910.962.7259 or fischettid@uncw.edu.

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About Julian Bond

As an activist who has faced imprisonment for his convictions, as a veteran of more than 20 years of service in the Georgia General Assembly, and as a writer, teacher and lecturer, Julian Bond has been on the cutting edge of social change since he was a college student leading sit-in demonstrations in Atlanta in 1960. He currently serves as national board chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).