RIP Julian Bond

image of Julian Bond, an elderly black man, to which I've added text reading: 'Good things don't come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate.—Julian Bond.'

Civil rights advocate, social justice champion, one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, former chairman of the NAACP, and co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center Julian Bond died Saturday at the age of 75 after a short illness. His New York Times obituary is here.

He led an extraordinary life, right to its very end:
His wife of 24 years, Pamela Horowitz, was leaving the intensive care unit when a nurse stopped her, the first admirer to offer condolences.

"She told me, 'I want you to know it was a privilege to take care of him,'" recalls Horowitz, voice wavering. "She said, 'As a gay American, I thought he was a hero.' And for her to say that, for her to be the last person who was with him, I thought it was a nice way to end."
Julian Bond was genuinely a national treasure. Rest in power, sir.

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