Julian Bond: Reflections from the Frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement

An interview with African-American social activist and former Georgia legislator Julian Bond is intercut with archival footage and photographs to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement in the United States from a very personal perspective. Bond's father was the first African-American president of Pennsylvania's Lincoln University, and the family hosted black luminaries in education and the arts, but Bond recalls growing up in the era of “separate but equal” laws. He talks about his early involvement with the Civil Rights movement, his nomination at the age of 28 for vice president of the United States (an honor put forth at the 1968 Democratic convention, which Bond declined), and the Georgia legislature's efforts to prevent him from being seated as a representative on the grounds that he had not supported the Vietnam War. Filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley explores major milestones of the era—the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech, the assassinations of King and John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson's impact on U.S. race relations—from the viewpoint of Bond, who offers his own insights, and adds some personal revelations, such as the fact that he was a published poet during his college years. Responding to the point that Barack Obama's election is the culmination of years of struggle, Bond notes that Obama has acknowledged that debt, and the film closes with a montage of major African-American figures from Frederick Douglass to Spike Lee. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)