LBGTQ+ History Month - meet Bayard Rustin
It’s both Banned Books Week and LBGTQ+ History Month. So much to do. Throughout the month, I’ll feature a pioneer who has been largely forgotten or marginalized so that we can learn the stories of these advocates who helped advance LGBTQ+ rights in the United States.
Today, we meet Baynard Rustin.
Briefly: Bayard Rustin was a key activist in the Civil Rights Movement. He organized the 1963 March on Washington, worked with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and is credited with introducing Dr. King to Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings on nonviolence. But Rustin’s name and accomplishments were often relegated to the background because he was openly gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
More detail: Bayard Rustin was born in 1912 in eastern Pennsylvania, and was raised by his grandparents, from whom he learned the Quaker value of pacifism. This may be why, as a young man, Rustin fully embraced Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence both as a way of life and as a vehicle for advancing the cause of justice. Rustin’s commitment to pacifism and his opposition to the racial discrimination present in the U. S. armed forces resulted in him spending 26 months in prison as a conscientious objector during World War II. There, Rustin organized other inmates into protests against the racial segregation built into the prison system.
Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, Bayard Rustin continued to engage in the struggle for justice, both nationally and internationally. In the 1980s, until his death in 1987, he was active in the movement for gay rights and worked to bring knowledge of the AIDS crisis to the attention of the NAACP. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously, saying, “For decades, this great leader, often at Dr. King’s side, was denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay. No medal can change that, but today, we honor Bayard Rustin’s memory by taking our place in his march towards true equality, no matter who we are or who we love.”
Adult Books
Lost prophet : the life and times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio
Bayard Rustin : troubles I’ve seen : a biography by Jervis Anderson
Children’s Books
Unstoppable : how Bayard Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington by Michael G. Long
Bayard Rustin by J. P. Miller
Trouble maker for justice : the story of Bayard Rustin, the man behind the March on Washington by Jacqueline Houtman
Documentary on DVD
Brother outsider: the life of Bayard Rustin
Online Resources
“Who Designed the March on Washington?” Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PBS’s The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
“Remembering Bayard Rustin: The Man Behind the March on Washington,” NPR Thoroughline
“Before Montgomery: Bayard Rustin and the Fight for Racial Justice During World War II,” National World War II Museum