Julian Bond, a longtime civil rights activist and former board chairman of the NAACP, has died. He was 75.
Bond died Saturday night in Fort Walton Beach, Florida after a brief illness, according to a statement from the Southern Poverty Law Center, in which Bond served as the group’s first president.
“The country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice,” The SPLC staid in a statement posted on its website. “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.”