One of the self-proclaimed "six people in the whole universe who can honestly say, 'I was a student of Dr. (Martin Luther) King,'" Julian Bond kicked off Black History Month Saturday night with a sharp critique of several key Bush administration policies and what he described as a lackluster response by Democrats. The talk filled Salomon 101 nearly to capacity.
Bond, the current chairman of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began his speech with a narration of the American civil rights movement in which he quoted at length poignant speeches by King and several other civil rights leaders. But he quickly turned to more contemporary issues.
Though he was quick to remind the audience that the NAACP is a strictly non-partisan organization and that he is "not a Democrat," Bond largely compared the current political state to the one that brought about the civil rights movement, arguing that current circumstances warrant strong collective action to counter inequality.
Though members of the civil rights movement of the 1960s were able to use legal means to forward their cause, that route to equality has been exhausted, Bond said. The current fight for equality, he reasoned, therefore requires new weapons. "If there is more to be done, we have more to do it with," he said, adding that although American society is no longer racially segregated, it is "more difficult to attack now than ever before."
Speaking to a racially diverse crowd that often interjected with shouts of approval, long bouts of laughter and three separate standing ovations, Bond began his criticism with the Bush administration's war in Iraq.
"When wars are fought to save democracy, the first causality is usually democracy itself," he told the audience. The war in Iraq has "as much to do with terrorism as the administration has to do with compassion," he said, adding that the administration used Sept. 11, 2001 as "an excuse to wage war in Iraq."
Bond went on to imply that if nothing is done, America's political climate will likely worsen. "Now, they want to write bigotry into the Constitution ... to amend the Constitution to create a class of second-class citizens," he said of Bush's push to make gay marriage illegal.
A supporter of affirmative action, Bond said that it has been "under attack not because it has failed, but because it had succeeded," pointing to what he called a rising number of educated black citizens. He dismissed claims that affirmative action ultimately hurts those it aims to help, even citing Bush as an example of affirmative action. "What about those that got a good job because dad was the president of the U.S.?" he asked.
Bond argued that the Bush administration uses Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as "human shields" against criticism on human rights issues. He added that, in actuality, the administration's "idea of compassion is to say 'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.'"
The Democratic Party, however, did not escape Bond's criticism either. "Too often they're not an opposition," he said, "They've been absent without leave. ... When one party is shameless, the other can't afford to be spineless."
Bond ended his speech by urging the audience to take action. "By the year 2050, blacks and Hispanics will make up 40 percent of the population," he said, urging blacks and Hispanics not to fight one another, but instead fight together.
"We've never wished our way to freedom, instead we've always worked our way," Bond said. "All of us are implicated in the continuation of inequality."
During the question-and-answer session, students asked how to tackle issues such as urban education and the 2008 presidential election. Bond responded by saying the NAACP will make sure that as many black voters are registered as possible and encouraged the audience to join the NAACP, which he said accepts people of all races.
Professor of Political Science Marion Orr, who shows one of his classes clips from "Eyes on the Prize," the acclaimed documentary on civil rights that Bond narrates, said he was honored to introduce Bond. He added that he hopes everyone in the audience - whom he said was about the same age as King was when he began pressing for social change - would glean inspiration from the talk.
"I thought he had a very funny way of presenting some of the issues facing African Americans and Americans in general," said one attendee, Stefan Lallinger '08. "It was very entertaining and eye-opening. He inspired me to be more critical of both political parties and not just focus my attention on criticizing one party."
