ACTIVISTS and politicians queued up yesterday to pay tribute to civil rights and anti-war campaigner Julian Bond who died in Florida at the weekend aged 75.

Former UN ambassador Andrew Young said that his legacy would be remembered as a lifetime struggler.

“He started when he was about 17 and he went to 75 and I don’t know a single time when he was not involved in some phase of the civil rights movement.”

Mr Bond’s wife said that he “never took his eyes off the prize and that was always racial equality.”

He burst into national consciousness after helping found the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee, where he worked with committee leaders Stokely Carmichael and future Congressman John Lewis. Mr Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 but was barred from taking his seat because of his anti-Vietnam war stance.

The Supreme Court ruled in his favour and he took office in ’67.