WASHINGTON — Civil rights pioneer Julian Bond was remembered Saturday by friends and admirers who cast flower petals in the waters near the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
Bond died Aug. 15 at age 75.
“We are commemorating here today a man who spent his entire lifetime in the civil rights movement,” said D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, before she tossed red rose petals into the Tidal Basin.
Bond’s family asked that the lifelong civil rights activist and former chairman of the NAACP be honored with flower petals cast on water at the moment that his remains were scheduled to be spread over the Gulf of Mexico in a private ceremony.
“He was not only a giant in the traditional civil rights movement he helped lead the anti-war effort, the anti-apartheid effort, he helped on the D.C. Voting Rights Act,” said Ralph Neas, of Bethesda. Neas is the former head of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights and worked with Bond on campaigns against vote suppression and voter intimidation.
Norton, Julian Bond and Rep. John Lewis, (D-Ga,) help found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became a pivotal 1960’s-era civil rights group made up of college-age students.
“There are not that many comrades that you could say I remember when we were both kids in the movement,” Norton said.
The roots of friendship go even deeper for D.C. resident Sammie Whiting-Ellis, who knew Julian Bond when they were children. They were both members of Jack and Jill, an African-American youth group focused on fine arts and culture.
“We’ve lost the best, but the best is yet to come, based on what he has left for us,” Whiting-Elllis said.
