At the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago,McCarthy supporters placed his name in nomination for Vice President as a protest to the Johnson-Humphrey policies.This despite the fact that he was Constitutionally too young to assume the office. In 1988,when Eugene McCarthy,on one of his third party runs for the Presidency asked me to run as his Vice Presidential candidate,I quipped to him that I was following in Julian Bond's footsteps as at the time I too was Constitutionally too young to assume the office.
Julian Bond was a friend of my High School History Teacher,the late Jack Chatfield who passed away last year.. The two worked together in the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) In fact Bond was with Jack when he was wounded in a rifle attack by the Ku Klux Klan.
He was the Graduating speaker for the Watkinson School Class of 1974. My brother Howie was part of that graduating class. I was in Alaska at the time,and was planning to spend my summer there.However upon hearing that Julian Bond was to be the speaker,I flew from Alaska to Connecticut for the Graduation Ceremony,and thanks to Jack,I got to speak with him afterwards. My brother told me he even showed up to the Graduation party.
In the year 2000,I had another chance meeting with Julian Bond. He walked into the Barnes &Noble bookstore where I was working at the time. Over coffee we had a wide ranging discussion from politics to poetry. At the time I was the Grassroots Party candidate for US Senate. Julian Bond was responsible for me being the first Third Party Candidate permitted to present my candidacy to the local chapter of the NAACP. It was one of the proudest moments of that campaign.
Job Well Done Julian Bond..Rest in Peace
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