Julian Bond is awesome

Last night, Andre and I went to a Zocalo event last night at the Peterson Auto Museum . It was a discussion betweent he awesome Warren Olney and former NAACP chair Julian Bond.  The civil rights leader was eveything that you would hope for: charasmatic, charming, witty, sharp, and funny.  He recounted several stories from his days at the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as well as fondly remembering his days at Morehouse college, specifically in a philiosphy class taught by Dr. King.

One of the best moments of the evening was Mr. Boond describing his views on LGBT issue and the black community. He actually "boycotted" Coretta Scott King's funeral because it was held in a church that openly discriminated against gays in the church and had an anti-gay marriage policy. He told stories of how Coretta Scott King was a huge gay rights activist and would have been appalled to know that her service was taking place there. I respect him for trying honor what he thought her wishes might have been.

He also spoke about how  President Obama was disappointing him, but that every other president had disappointed his as well, so there is nothing particularly special about that. He also remarked that he felt somewhat naive in anticpating the kind of negativity that the Republican party has throwing toward the president. He recalled his continuing surprise with the effort and willingness of the Republicans to throw the country into  debt and chaos so that Obama wouldn't get his way.

Lastly, he told great stories about Dr Barnes and Lincoln college after someone in the audience asked about his Dad and the documentary called "The Art of the Steal". If you haven't watched it, go do so, its great.

Sadly, the question and answer section og the evening was quite short and I didn't get to ask either of the questions I had, which were:

1) As the black community struggles to maintain and achieve progress, how can we look at  the dissolution of the black family unit as part of teh problem and what can we do to mend it?

2)I wanted to know what his thoughts were on the Justice department recently announcing that they would not reopen the Malcolm X murder case because they did not view it as a pressing matter or him to be a significant enough person of interest.

What would you ask Julian Bond?

Here is a link to the artcle from last night (AND.... a photo of Andre and I in the audience!)

http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/07/25/the-names-bond-julian-bond/read/the-takeaway/