Norton to Commemorate Julian Bond, D.C. Resident, Statehood Advocate, and Civil Rights Leader, at Tidal Basin, Saturday

WASHINGTON, D.C.—At the request of Julian Bond's family, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will join his friends and supporters throughout the nation to remember him by gathering at a body of water on Saturday, August 22, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. and spreading flower petals to bid him farewell. Norton will join Washingtonians, supporters of D.C. statehood and voting rights, and organizations such as DC Vote, at the Tidal Basin near the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on Saturday, August 22, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. to release flowers and reflect on Julian Bond's life. Norton thanked DC Vote for selecting the Tidal Basin near the memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life paralleled Julian Bond's in many ways.

"We who live in Washington, where Julian lived for more than 25 years, should especially remember him on Saturday because he never forgot us," Norton said. "Julian became my constituent long after he had been my friend and colleague in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Just as he always embraced the movement he joined as a student, Julian did not hesitate to embrace D.C. as a new frontier of the Civil Rights Movement. He knew where he lived and what D.C. needed. Julian was always available to any of us who needed his help on causes from climate change to statehood. He was more than willing to participate with me in an intergenerational conversation with Howard University students this past February during Black History Month following the police killings in Ferguson and New York City. In coming to the Tidal Basin on Saturday, we will not only be remembering Julian, we will be affirming the great causes that he championed during his lifetime, especially statehood for the District of Columbia."