#TBT: Take A Look at Julian Bond’s ‘Vietnam’ Comic

By Sameer Rao Aug 20, 2015

Julian Bond’s significance to the Civil Rights Movement as an orator, organizer and thought leader is publicly acknowledged. What is less known is that, for a brief moment, Bond’s rhetoric extended into visual art—namely, the world of independent comics.

Less than a week after Bond’s passing, there is no more relevant #ThrowbackThursday than a look at "Vietnam," Bond’s 1967 comic that details the near-universal repudiation of the Vietnam War by black activists, politicians and Civil Rights leaders for its representation of America’s ideological and racist hypocrisy. Bond published the comic after his expulsion from the Georgia House of Representatives due to his opposition to the war. 

The 20-page comic is available for public viewership thanks to The Sixties Project, an all-volunteer collective of scholars hosted by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. Kalí Tal, a former Professor of Humanities at the University of Arizona and coordinator of The Sixties Project, noted in an e-mail to Colorlines that Bond himself didn’t have an original copy of the comic but that he’d given her a xerox copy. 

Click here to read the available pages of "Vietnam." 

(H/t The Root