WASHINGTON: Julian Bond, a pioneering US civil rights activist and the former board chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, has died.

He was 75.

Bond died late Saturday in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Centre said in a statement on Sunday.

"The country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice," stated the centre, where Bond served as president from 1971 to 1979. "He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, subject to oppression.”