Julian Bond's Time to Teach A History of the Southern Civil Rights Movement

A masterclass in the civil rights movement from one of the legendary activists who led it.

Compiled from his original lecture notes, Julian Bond’s Time to Teach brings his invaluable teachings to a new generation of readers and provides a necessary toolkit for today’s activists in the era of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. Julian Bond sought to dismantle the perception of the civil rights movement as a peaceful and respectable protest that quickly garnered widespread support. Through his lectures, Bond detailed the ground-shaking disruption the movement caused, its immense unpopularity at the time, and the bravery of activists (some very young) who chose to disturb order to pursue justice.

Beginning with the movement’s origins in the early twentieth century, Bond tackles key events such as the Montgomery bus boycott, the Little Rock Nine, Freedom Rides, sit-ins, Mississippi voter registration, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing, the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act, Freedom Summer, and Selma. He explains the youth activism, community ties, and strategizing required to build strenuous and successful movements. With these firsthand accounts of the civil rights movement and original photos from Danny Lyon, Julian Bond’s Time to Teach makes history come alive.

Horace Julian Bond (1940–2015) was a leader in the civil rights movement, a politician, professor, writer, and activist. A founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he went on to serve as president of the Southern Poverty Law Center from 1971 to 1979. He served ten years in the Georgia House and six terms in the Georgia Senate. From 1998 to 2010, Bond was the board chairman of the NAACP. He taught at several universities, including the University of Virginia, where he spent twenty years as a professor in the history department. He is the author of A Time To Speak, A Time To Act.
Pamela Horowitz (Foreword) was one of the first lawyers hired at the Southern Poverty Law Center. She worked in partnership with her late husband, Julian Bond, in multiple public, private, and academic projects and is involved in several activities honoring his legacy.
Jeanne Theoharis (Introduction) is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is the author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (NAACP Image Award winner 2014) and A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize for Nonfiction 2018). Jeanne was Julian Bond’s student, teaching assistant, and mentee.
Vann R. Newkirk II (Afterword) is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics and policy.

Foreword—by Pam Horowitz
Introduction: What Julian Bond Taught Me—by Jeanne Theoharis
Introduction to the Course—by Julian Bond

ONE
White Supremacy and the Founding of the NAACP

TWO
Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

THREE
World War II

FOUR
President Truman and the road to Brown

FIVE
Brown v. Board of Education

SIX
The Montgomery Bus Boycott

SEVEN
The 1956 Presidential Election and the 1957 Civil Rights Act

EIGHT
Little Rock, 1957

NINE
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

TEN
The Sit-Ins and the Founding of SNCC

ELEVEN
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

TWELVE
The Freedom Rides

THIRTEEN
Kennedy and Civil Rights, 1961

FOURTEEN
Albany, Georgia, 1961

FIFTEEN
Mississippi Voter Registration

SIXTEEN
Birmingham

SEVENTEEN
Mississippi, Medgar Evers, and the Civil Rights Bill

EIGHTEEN
The March on Washington

NINETEEN
The Civil Rights Act

TWENTY
Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

TWENTY-ONE
Selma, Alabama, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act

TWENTY-TWO
Vietnam, Black Power, and the Assassination of Martin Luther King

Afterword: We Are in Need of Shaking—by Vann R. Newkirk II
Acknowledgments
Annotated Bibliography—by Julian Bond
Recommended Readings
Notes
Index