Bayard Rustin
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Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a crucial behind-the-scenes architect of
the American civil rights movement. He was a brilliant black activist, a
one-time member of the
Communist Party, and a "known homosexual" -- all exceedingly dangerous
identities during the suspicious '50s.
Brought up by his grandmother in a Pennsylvania Quaker community, Rustin
became a pacifist early on. Like his close associate, Martin Luther
King Jr., he
subscribed to the nonviolent tenets of Mahatma Gandhi. During World War
II, he protested the internment of Japanese Americans and was jailed as
a
conscientious objector. Rustin's more than 20 arrests for matters of
conscience included one in California for "public morals charges" -- a
barely veiled
reference to homosexuality.
For the most part, Rustin stayed out of the spotlight, applying his
legendary attention to detail to many of the largest civil rights
demonstrations of the '40s
and '50s. In 1947 he organized the "Journey of Reconciliation," in
which an integrated group of protestors boarded segregated buses across
the South.
The Journey was the model for the Freedom Rides of the 1960s.
Rustin is most famous as the strategic force behind the 1963 March on
Washington, where 200,000 protestors heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I
have a
dream" speech. (The disorganized Millennium March on Washington in
April 2000 could have benefited from his expertise.) Strom Thurmond
tried to
sabotage the march by denouncing Rustin's homosexuality on the floor of
the Senate, but King publicly supported him and the march went on.
Rustin described his work as "social dislocation and creative trouble."
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