On Saturday night, after a brief illness, civil rights leader Julian Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He was 75.

Born on January 14, 1940, in Nashville, Tennessee, Horace Julian Bond, while a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

In 1965, he and seven other black members were elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. According to the New York Times, white members of the House refused to allow him to take his seat; in 1966, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the legislature to seat him, saying it had denied Bond freedom of speech. He served in the Georgia Legislature for 20 years.

Bond founded the Southern Poverty Law Center with Morris Dees in 1971 and served as its president until 1979. In 1998, Bond was named the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

He is survived by Pamela Sue Horowitz, his second wife, and five children.

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