Santa Ana : Julian Bond Will Speak at Tribute to Rev. King

Civil rights activist and former Georgia state Sen. Julian Bond will be the featured speaker at a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. on Friday in the Valley High School auditorium, 1801 S. Greenville St.

Bond’s appearance, set for 7 p.m., marks the 56th anniversary of Rev. King’s birth on Jan. 15, 1929. The two first met when Bond took a philosophy course under King at Atlanta’s Morehouse College in the late 1950s. Their friendship grew during the civil rights movement of the 1960s when Bond was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

In 1965, following his election at age 25 to the Georgia House of Representatives--making him the first black Georgian elected to the Legislature since Reconstruction--Bond rose to national prominence when the Georgia House refused to seat him because of his outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War.

In December, 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled his exclusion unconstitutional.

Bond, who will turn 44 the day before King’s birthday, said his presentation in Santa Ana will deal with personal memories and “the legacy of Dr. King, what it all means.”

“The lesson from the period of Dr. King’s leadership is that civil rights advances when there is an aggressive black community and reciprocity in the white community,” he said in a telephone interview Friday. “Right now,” he said, “we don’t have either one of those conditions.”

Donations to the talk are $3.