Institute head and civil-rights activist, born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. Schooled in literature and history at Cheyney State (Pennsylvania) and Wilberforce (Ohio) colleges, he joined the Young Communist League (1936) and became an organizer (1938). He also sang occasionally at a New York City nightclub with notables Josh White and Leadbelly. He left the Communist Party (1941), joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a non-violent anti-war group, and helped A Philip Randolph plan a threatened march on Washington to demand better job opportunities for blacks in the defence industry (19401). He served several jail terms in the 1940s: for conscientious objection during World War 2 (released 1945); for demonstrating in the American Indian independence movement; and for participating in a North Carolina freedom ride (1947). He was involved in various pacifist movements (194755), then joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) (1955) as Martin Luther King's special assistant, serving as the organizational co-ordinator for the SCLC March on Washington (1963). Named executive director of the newly founded A Philip Randoph Institute (196487), he worked to promote programmes to cure America's social and economic ills. Although over the years he advocated the orderly seizure of political power by activist blacks, white liberals, religious parties, and labour unions to effect a rebalance of national priorities, he never favoured black separatism.
Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African-American civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier and principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Rustin was openly gay and advocated on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career. A high school opened in September 2006 named for Bayard Rustin in his home town has posted a bio for him on its website that make no mention of Walter Nagle his partner for 10 years, the fact that Rustin was an openly gay man, or any of his work for gay rights.
A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community.
Early life
Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
In 1932, Rustin entered Wilberforce University, but left in 1936 before taking his final exams. After completing an activist training program conducted by the American Friends Service Committee, Rustin moved to Harlem in 1937 and began studying at City College of New York.
Evolving affiliations
The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was originally a strong supporter of the civil rights movement, but in 1941, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin ordered the CPUSA to abandon civil rights work and focus on support for U.S. involvement in World War II.
In 1942, Rustin assisted two other staffers of FOR, George Houser and James L. As pacifists, Rustin, Houser, and other members of FOR and CORE were arrested for violating the Selective Service Act. From 1944 to 1946, Rustin was imprisoned in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, where he organized protests against segregated dining facilities.
Influence on the civil-rights movement
Rustin and Houser organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947.
Between 1947 and 1952, Rustin met with leaders of the Ghana's and Nigeria's independence movements and, in 1951, he formed the Committee to Support South African Resistance, which later became the American Committee on Africa.
Rustin took leave from the War Resisters League in 1956 to advise Martin Luther King Jr., on Gandhian tactics as King organized the public transportation boycott in Montgomery, Alabama known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The following year, Rustin and King began organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Many African-American leaders were concerned that Rustin's open homosexuality and Communist past would undermine support for the civil rights movement. forced Rustin's resignation from the SCLC in 1960 by threatening to discuss Rustin's morals charge in Congress. Although Rustin was open about his homosexuality and his conviction was a matter of public record, it had not been discussed widely outside the civil rights leadership.
When Rustin and Randolph organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, Senator Strom Thurmond railed against Rustin as a "Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual" and produced an FBI photograph of Rustin talking to King while King was bathing, to imply that there was a homosexual relationship between the two. Both men denied the allegation of an affair, but despite King's support, NAACP chairman Roy Wilkins did not allow Rustin to receive any public recognition for his role in planning the march.
After passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, Rustin advocated closer ties between the civil rights movement and the Democratic Party and its labor activist base. Rustin was an early supporter of President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policy, but as the war escalated and began to supersede Democratic programs for racial reconciliation and labor reform, Rustin returned to his pacifist roots.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin worked as a human rights and election monitor for Freedom House. He also testified on behalf of New York State's Gay Rights Bill and, in 1986, claimed that the gay and lesbian community had become the "barometer" of human rights because it is "the community which is most easily mistreated."
Rustin died on August 24, 1987, of a perforated appendix.
A new public high school of the West Chester Area School District, in Westtown, PA near the Quaker-run Westtown School, bearing his name opened in September 2006, Rustin High School.
Rustin's work with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1963 in the days preceding the March on Washington, Senator Strom Thurmond produced a photograph of Rustin talking to a bathing MLK Jr.
Rustin also worked for New York State's gay rights bill.
In September 2006 a new high school named after Rustin opened in his home town. The school has posted a bio for him on its website that deletes any mention of his work for gay rights, his belief as a founding member of the civil rights movement that gay rights were part of the civil rights movement, or that he was openly gay at all.
Trivia
Just before a trip to Africa, while college secretary of the F.O.R., Rustin recorded a 10" LP for "Fellowship Records."
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