Julian Bond
(Image credit: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Former NAACP chairman Julian Bond died Saturday night at age 75 after a brief illness, The New York Times reports. A noted leader in the 1960s civil rights movement, Bond was also one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a Georgia state legislator.

"With Julian's passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice," SPLC wrote in a statement Sunday. "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."

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.