Civil Rights Leader Julian Bond Sworn in as Georgia State Legislator
Julian Bond, a civil rights leader, was sworn in as a Georgia state legislator on tis day but only after the legislature had denied him his seat because of his political activities and the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him seated.
Bond was a leader of the early sit-in movement beginning in 1960 and a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Hew as a leader, for example, of the first sit-ins in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 15, 1960.
He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, but the Georgia House voted, 184–12, to bar him from taking his seat because of his political views. The Supreme Court, in Bond v. Floyd, decided on December 5, 1966, ordered the legislature to seat him — and he took his seat on this day.
Bond explains how he became a civil rights activist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hISQ_0jLAmQ
Read more about Julian Bond: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-908
Read: Julian Bond, A Time to Speak, A Time to Act (1972)