Civil Rights icon Bayard Rustin died this day, 1987

August 24, 2020

33 years ago today, legendary civil rights icon and activist Bayard Rustin passed away. He was 75.

Dig this! One of his most important contributions was introducing the Gandhian concept of non-violence to the civil-rights movement.

He "provided Dr. King with a deep understanding of nonviolent ideas and tactics at a time when King had only an academic familiarity with Gandhi." "A close advisor to Martin Luther King and one of the most influential and effective organizers of the civil rights movement, Rustin was affectionately referred to as _Mr. March-on-Washington_ by A. Philip Randolph" (the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters).

Rustin's having survived most of the 20th century while living in the United States as an openly gay black man also adds a layer of the incredible to his incredible life-story.

The involvement of his grandmother, Julia Davis Rustin, in the NAACP meant that Rustin's childhood home was often visited by movement luminaries, including W.E.B. DuBois and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Rustin was a member of the Young Communists League at age 24, until they demanded that he stop protesting racial segregation in the military. Instead, he quit the League.

“In 1944, Rustin was sentenced to three years in prison for failing to appear before the draft board. After angering prison administrators by being openly gay and organizing desegregation protests, he was transfered to a high security prison, where he did 26 months.”

A photo of a smiling Rustin (in his late 20s), outdoors, sitting on a log, strumming a mandolin

“In the early 1950s, he traveled to West Africa, and met Ghanaian and Nigerian independence movement leaders. There, he reaffirmed that the struggle for liberation was not only a Black American issue, but a transnational one, affecting all of the Black diasporas.”

In 1953, he was arrested in Pasadena after being found having sex with two men in a parked car. He survived nearly two months in an LA county jail, and was required to register as a sex-offender. (California Governor Gavin Newsom pardoned Rustin, posthumously, last February.)

"Rustin organized and led a number of protests in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, including the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. While his homosexuality and former affiliation with the Communist Party led some to question King’s relationship with him, King recognized the importance of Rustin’s skills and his dedication to the movement. In a 1960 letter, King told a colleague: 'We are thoroughly committed to the method of nonviolence in our struggle, and are convinced that Bayard’s expertness and commitment in this area will be of inestimable value.'”

That is one life-time full of proud achievement on behalf of others!

Rest in Power, Bayard Rustin.