Bayard Rustin, gay activist who trained MLK in non-violence.

[EFerrari]

This was news to me. I just saw a clip of Julian Bond talking on the first GLBT panel at an NAACP convention, and he quotes Bayard Rustin as saying, MLK "couldn't organize vampires to attend a bloodbath" when they started working together.

LOL

The Wiki entry:



Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader several social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.

In the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), Rustin practiced nonviolence. He was a leading activist of the early 1947–1955 civil-rights movement, helping to initiate a 1947 Freedom Ride to challenge with civil disobedience racial segregation on interstate busing. He recognized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership, and helping to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to strengthen King's leadership; Rustin promoted the philosophy of nonviolence and the practices of nonviolent resistance, which he had observed while working with Gandhi's movement in India. Rustin became a leading strategist of the civil rights movement from 1955–1968. He was the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was headed by A. Philip Randolph, the leading African-American labor-union president and socialist.<1><2> Rustin also influenced young activists, such as Tom Kahn and Stokely Carmichael, in organizations like the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

After the passage of the civil-rights legislation of 1964–1965, Rustin focused attention on the economic problems of working-class and unemployed African Americans, suggesting that the civil-rights movement had left its period of "protest" and had entered an era of "politics", in which the Black community had to ally with the labor movement. Rustin became the head of the AFL–CIO's A. Philip Randolph, which promoted the integration of formerly all-white unions and promoted the unionization of African Americans. Rustin became an honorary chairperson of the Socialist Party of America in 1972, before it changed its name to Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA); Rustin acted as national chairman of SDUSA during the 1970s. During the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin served on many humanitarian missions, such as aiding refugees from Communist Vietnam and Cambodia. He was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti when he died in 1987.

Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested for homosexual behavior early in his life. Because homosexuality was criminalized through the 1990s and stigmatized through the 1970s, Rustin's sexuality was criticized by some fellow pacifists and civil-rights leaders. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Rustin was attacked as a "pervert" or "immoral influence" by political opponents, both segregationists and Black power militants. To avoid such attacks, Rustin served only rarely as a public spokesperson. He usually acted as an influential adviser to civil-rights leaders. In the 1970s, he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin

[MADem]

1. Rustin had to be hidden in the Civil Rights closet.

He was a "weak link" in the sense that his homosexuality was problematic for the movement in that era. He was also a 'commie' and a 'socialist' so he was a real trifecta lightning rod.

He was a smart guy. The March on Washington would not have happened if not for him--he did a lot of the heavy lifting.

[democrank]

2. K & R

[TomClash]

3. Excellent post

One of the greatest and most forgotten men of the civil rights movement, ignored by everyone due to in part to his sexual orientation and mostly because of class sympathies. Imagine being called a nigger and a fag and then choosing "strike three" - socialism. That takes the courage of a war hero.

[EFerrari]

5. He sounds like Hoover's nightmare, lol.

:)

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. "Immoral influence", my ass.

>>>>"couldn't organize vampires to attend a bloodbath" >>>>> Consider it expropriated; used to be BR's; now it's mine.


Huge XxxxXXX ( it's Sunday) FRIGGIN' rec.

[ruggerson]

6. the reason it's news to you is because of "historical homophobia"

There wouldn't have been a march on Washington nor an MLK "I have a dream" speech if it were not for Rustin.

[EFerrari]

9. Of course. And since his gayness was used to try to detach him

from the black civil rights movement and deny it of that asset, it looks like the homophobia was ginned up purposefully as well. So what is remembered is the homophobia and not this amazing person. Wild.

[EFerrari]

7. Trailer from the biographic film, Brother Outsider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxhKgnyWcuw

[EFerrari]

8. Gay Man in the Civil Rights Movement (10 minute clip)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi4AWjt9Bv0&NR=1

"Without Bayard Rustin, the March on Washington would have been like a bird without wings." -- John Lewis

[Irishonly]

10. Thanks for posting about Rustin

I am sorry I didn't know about him. He was a great man and it is sickening he had to be in the background. He should be a national hero.

[Veruca Salt]

11. He's one of my personal hero's and likely one of the most influential unspoken leaders in the civil

rights movements.

It may sound silly but I like to think he's watching over his gay brothers and sisters as we make our way forward.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

12. Not Really....

I would like to think that many of those who have gone before are looking down and watching over us.

[MadMaddie]

13. There is a great documentry about him

It was appalling to me he was fired for being gay.

http://www.logotv.com/video/brother-outsider-the-life-of-bayard-rustin/1600849/playlist.jhtml

[EFerrari]

14. I tried to watch it there but it doesn't load.

[MadMaddie]

16. sorry

it on the logo tv site

[Iggo]

15. I saw a TV biodrama about MLK sometime back in the wayback.

I can barely remember it now.

But there was this one scene that's always stuck with me in which a gay ally of MLK's was being herded out the back of wherever they were meeting and then being loaded into the trunk of a car and driven off so that MLK wouldn't be seen with him or arrested with him or something.

Now I know who was being portrayed.

Thanks for posting this, E.