Bayard Rustin: Civil rights icon and gay rights activist
If you don’t know Bayard Rustin’s name, you undoubtedly know his work.
If you don’t know Bayard Rustin’s name, you undoubtedly know his work.
If you don’t know Bayard Rustin’s name, you undoubtedly know his work.
Bayard Rustin fought two historic battles: Black American civil rights and the gay liberation movement.
Rustin worked to end racial segregation using pacifist agitation and was the chief architect of the 1963 March on Washington. He led nonviolent protests against segregated restaurants, movie theaters, barbershops, amusement parks and more.
In 1953, he was arrested in California for having sex with another man. For this, he was sentenced to 50 days in jail and had to register as a sex offender. He was posthumously pardoned for the conviction in 2020, 33 years after his death.
In the mid-1950s, Rustin became a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr., and he was the principal organizer of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Bayard kept out of the public spotlight, fearing his sexuality could be used to attack King. Despite being behind the scenes, he was hugely influential in the civil rights movement.
One of his crowning achievements was the March on Washington, where a quarter of a million people rallied in Washington to support pending civil rights legislation. It was here King made history delivering his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
In 1964, Rustin directed a student boycott of New York City’s public schools in protest against racial discrimination in schools. He then served as president of a civil rights organization in New York City from 1966 to 1979.
Soon thereafter, he became involved in the gay rights movement.
In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.