NAACP chairman joins in UCI series

Civil rights icon Julian Bond spoke to a full house in UCI’s Center Crystal Cove Auditorium Thursday night, discussing his both his role in ending segregation in the 1960s and today’s racial climate in the United States.

The lecture, part of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium series at UCI, was sponsored by the university’s cross-cultural center and the Black Student Union.

“Every year, we take the opportunity to honor the legacy of Dr. King,” Chancellor Michael Drake said in his introductory remarks. “The fact that we can continue to revisit and renew our dedication to the values he has brought to us makes his legacy one that will continue into immortality.”

Bond, who helped form the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as a college student in 1960, has since become an iconic figure of the era’s civil rights and antiwar movements. He has served as the executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since 1998.

Bond’s remarks touched on a number of contemporary issues, including this year’s presidential elections and the successes he associated with federal affirmative action policies.

Bond was quick to criticize those that would reduce the 2008 contest to a referendum on race or gender, but nevertheless alluded to his support of a particular candidate.

“We know that [Barack Obama’s] electoral success will not signal an end to racial discrimination,” he said. “But we know it reflects the aims of a multiracial political movement in existence since the Underground Railroad.

“It’s a serious mistake, both tactically and morally, [to believe] that this is a fight that should be waged by black Americans alone black, yellow, white — all are needed in this fight. It will require common effort to bring [ethnic injustice] to an end.”

Bond was also insistent that racial inequality — overriding even poverty — was the paramount moral crisis facing the United States today.

“Almost every social indicator — from birth to death — reflects black-white disparities,” he said. “Chances of imprisonment are much higher, lack of health insurance 45% more likely, and the average white American will like 5.5 years longer than a black American.”

Nevertheless, the 48-year veteran of progressive politics said he had high hopes for the future, saying he laughed at students who complain to him that things are “the worst they’ve ever been.”

“I am an eternal optimist, because in my whole lifetime, I have seen a world radically different from the world I see now, [and realize] that many of the things we see now were unthinkable or unimaginable,” he said.

Age: 68

Claim to Fame: Founding organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an organization on the forefront of the American civil rights movement. Responsible for organizing “Freedom Rides,” the 1963 March on Washington, and fomenting early opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Occupation: Adjunct professor at American University and the University of Virginia. Also the chairman of the NAACP.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in English from Morehouse College, in Atlanta.

CHRIS CAESAR may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at chris.caesar@latimes.com.