Bayard Rustin: The Man Some Tried to Erase from the Cause.
Born in March 17, 1812 in West Chester, Pennsylvania to Florence Rustin and Archie Hopkins, was an American leader. He fought for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence and gay rights.
The ninth of twelve children, Bayard was raised by his mother’s parents, Julia and Janifer Rustin, and grew up with the belief that his mother was his older sister. He grew up in a large home, as his grandparents were well off, and the likes of WEB Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson were constant guests in the home because of his grandmother’s active member participation in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Through this exposure, he began an early career in civil rights, campaigning against Jim Crow laws during his adolescence.
In 1932, he began at Wilberforce University, an HBCU (that’s a historically black college and university, if you don’t know), where he was actively involved in an array of campus organizations, including Omega Psi Phi. But, in 1936, after organizing a strike, he was expelled and later attended Cheyney State Teachers College, which is now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania; during the 2013 commencement, he was honored with a posthumous Doctor of Humane Letters.
Bayard moved to Harlem in 1937 to defend the Scottsboro Boys, nine teenage black men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama.
In 1941 he helped propose and organize a march on Washington to protest racial segregation in the armed forces as well as employment discrimination before it was canceled due to Roosevelt issuing Executive Order 8802, banning discrimination in defense industries and federal agencies.
He also took the time to learn techniques of nonviolent civil resistance, traveling to India in 1948 and meeting leaders of independence movements in Ghana and Nigeria between 1947-1952. He formed the Committee to Support African Resistance which later became the American Committee on Africa and is now known as Africa Action.
He came the executive secretary of the War Resisters League and, in 1956, took leave from that job to advise Martin Luther King, Jr. on Gandhian tactics as Martin was organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Before Bayard came along, our man Martin was all about that action (but we’ve long known that), and then Bayard convinced him to abandon armed protection (clearly not the smartest idea, but I digress) and also his personal handgun.
Of course, African American leaders were super homophobic (because homophobia in the black community still runs rampant to this day *insert eye roll*) and felt that because he was gay, his sexuality would somehow undermine support for the civil rights movement. As a result, US Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (#TRASH) ended up forcing Bayard to resign.
But Bayard continued fighting and was an integral part of the March on Washington in 1963, but of course, yet again, someone had to come be trash. This time, it was NAACO chairman Roy Wilkins who didn’t want to publicly credit Bayard for his involvement in planning the march. But, on September 6, 1963, Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph appeared on the cover of Life Magazine as the leaders of the March.
This has gotten longer than I expected so let me just shorten this the best I can, okay? I’ve been writing for a while. Also, this is the equivalent of me breaking the fourth wall in acting. Okay, sorry, back to Bayard.
He helped organize the New York City School Boycott and spoke at schools even though some universities were afraid he would organize a school boycott there, I’m looking at you University of Virginia. He started talking more about politics, particually expressing his thoughts that the black community was threatened by the appeal of identity politics.
He began advocating for gay rights in the 80s, nudged into it by his partner, Walter Naegle. He and his partner, in 1982, took an unconventional way of making their union legal. Because the world sucks and members of the LGBTQIA+ community weren’t allowed to marry, Bayard went through the steps to legally adopt Walter so they could legally become a family.
Bayard Rustin passed away on August 24, 1987 of a perforated appendix. At the time of his death, he was praised for his civil rights activism even though he was continuously denounced by his supposed “friends.”
Seriously y’all, check ya homophobia, and all other phobias that involve people not being like you because it’s not cute and no one wants nor needs your negativity.
