Bayard Rustin is often referred to as the “lost prophet” of the Civil Rights Movement. He is often forgotten and goes many conversations about the Civil Rights Movement unmentioned. He worked to make positive change in America for Civil Rights Movements and LGBT rights movements alike. Bayard Rustin was an important activist who changed America for the better in the 1900s by means of Civil Rights protests and movements, LGBT rights and movements, and inspiring change in America as a whole.
Rustin was behind the scenes in a multitude of Civil Rights Movements and events. His largest and most celebrated accomplishment was the organizing of the March on Washington. Rustin’s March on washington attracted around 200,000 people (March 2013). He worked very closely with Martin Luther King Jr. as a companion and advisor throughout the movement. In fact the entire idea of nonviolence and peaceful protests did not come from King, but from Rustin. Before King met Rustin he was not a nonviolent person (Outsider) and the entire Civil Rights Movement led by King would not have been successful and peaceful in the same way. Rustin’s time working with King was not altogether pleasant. King appropriated his ideas calling them his own. “King, who had not shown much interest in the earlier overtures of Rustin and Randolph, began to talk excitedly about a national mobilization, as if the idea were brand new.” (D’Emilio). As he would continue to do, Rustin bit his tongue and took his less than ideal treatment silently for the sake of the movement. Together King and Rustin made waves in the Civil Rights Movement going from one rally to the next; organizing marches, writing speeches, etc. Rustin was King’s advisor right up until the day King left his side to defend his sexuality. “Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York, angry that Rustin and King were planning a march outside the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, warned King that if he did not drop Rustin, Powell would tell the press King and Rustin were gay lovers. Regardless of the fact that Powell had concocted the charge for his own malicious reasons, King, in one of his weaker moments, called off the march and put distance between himself and Rustin” (March 2013). King and Rustin went their separate ways each continuing to work for the Civil Rights Movement in their own way.
His achievements are important for the lgbt community to show that a gay man helped shape the Civil Rights Movement (Outsider). Bayard Rustin is the most renowned LGBT activist of the Civil Rights Movement. As the Civil Rights Movement came to a close, Rustin focused his attention elsewhere: the LGBT Rights movement. He publicly testified for the New York State’s Gay Rights Bill in 1986. That same year he gave a speech on how the Civil Rights activists need to stand up for the gay community. “‘Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.’ -Bayard Rustin” (March 2013). It was only at this point in time that Rustin’s achievements in the Civil Rights Movement came to light. Rustin was one of the most behind the scenes and invisible people working for the Civil Rights Movement; not because he was gay, but because he did not try to hide it. The Civil Rights Movement kept him from the public so the support of homophobic people (at this point in time that was the majority of people) would not be lost. Most people passed Rustin off as a sex offender or ex communist and he is not well known in american households (D’Emilio). Despite the aforementioned hardships of being an openly gay man, Rustin continued to be out of the closet while simultaneously heading the Civil Rights Movement. ” Rustin was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era.” (Outsider). Bayard Rustin was an inspiration to black gay men who were living with their heads down around the country to rise up and join the LGBT Rights Movement. Mr. Rustin worked behind the scenes to transform America for the better. Despite his countless achievements, homophobia has all but erased him from the history books. “ Rustin was a gay ex-communist and, in 1963, reading from his FBI file made political hay.” (March). In 1953, he spent 60 days in jail for “sex perversion” (homosexual activity). He also spent from 1944 to 1946 in prison for practicing conscientious objection and refusing to join the military. Rustin’s activism was bound neither to America nor to the Civil Rights Movement and LGBT Rights Movement; he participated in marches and movements from a young age. “By the 1950s, Rustin was an expert organizer of human rights protests. In 1958, he played an important role in coordinating a march in Aldermaston, England, in which 10,000 attendees demonstrated against nuclear weapons.” (Rustin 2015). Thousands upon thousands of people went to human rights nonviolent protests he planned and organized without even knowing of his involvement. But when people did know he was involved, he inspired them to rise up. “We need in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers” (Long 2012). He meant more than just black communities when he said this. Despite his association with the Civil Rights Movement, Rustin supported and assisted all human rights movements and strived for equality and peace even for those in communities that do not affect him in any way. His focus on civil and economic rights, peace, human rights and the dignity of all people remain relevant today just as they were in the 1950s and 60s (Outsider). On August 28, 1987 Rustin died of a ruptured appendix but his legacy lived on. On November 20, 2013 President Barack Obama bestowed a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom on Bayard Rustin. America was changed for the better by the work of a man all but left out of the history books; Bayard Rustin.
Bayard Rustin worked in the shadows of the Civil Rights Movement. He brought to it the very idea of nonviolence that revolutionized the movement and then acted as an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. Simultaneously organizing marches and protests scaling to some of the largest the movement had, like the March on Washington. His accomplishments are not just remembered as those of a civil rights activist but also as a gay man. Bayard Rustin changed America through his work in the Civil Rights Movement, the LGBT Rights Movement, and his work to affect the country as a whole for the better.
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