Bayard Rustin

• Born: March 17, 1910
• Birthplace: West Chester, Pennsylvania
• Died: August 24, 1987
• Place of death: New York, New York

Activist

Rustin worked for civil rights, social justice, and world peace for more than fifty years. His major achievement was organizing the 1963 March on Washington, the pinnacle of the African American Civil Rights movement. Rustin also was a prominent figure in the early stages of the gay and lesbian rights struggle.

Areas of achievement: Gay and lesbian issues; Government and politics; Labor; Social issues

Early Life

Bayard Taylor Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1910 to Florence Davis, who was in her teens. He never knew his father. Rustin grew up believing that his grandparents, who raised him, were his parents; he did not learn the truth until he was eleven. He also realized that he was gay during his youth and confided in his grandmother, Julia Davis Rustin, who responded with understanding. Julia, a Quaker, positively influenced Rustin’s moral and social perspectives.

West Chester also shaped Rustin’s character. The community had been part of the Underground Railroad that harbored escaped slaves in the nineteenth century. However, West Chester was racially segregated in the 1920’s and the Ku Klux Klan was active in the town. While still a teenager, Rustin challenged segregation as an individual and by leading groups of African American peers. Confident, persuasive, and undaunted by arrests, Rustin proved adept at organizing people for social change.

In high school, Rustin excelled in athletics, singing, debating, and public speaking, and graduated near the top of his class. However, financial hardship and the Great Depression of the 1930’s prevented Rustin from earning a college degree.

Life’s Work

Rustin moved to New York City in the 1930’s. He found work singing until political activism took over. The American Communist Party’s opposition to racism led Rustin to join the party and work as a recruiter, but he quit in objection to its compromises on integration at the start of World War II. Rustin’s disillusionment with communism mirrored the experiences of Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and other prominent African Americans. The brief affiliation would haunt him in the future.

Rustin’s activism for organized labor, racial integration, and pacifism accelerated in the 1940’s. African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph and Rustin began their long working relationship during that time. Rustin joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international peace organization, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Both groups benefited from Rustin’s speaking and organizing tours. He endured arrests and beatings, but won over people with his convictions and charisma.

Rustin’s opposition to the military draft brought his activism and sexual relationships under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). His refusal to serve in World War II led to a prison term of more than two years. In 1947, Rustin joined an integrated group of activists for the first Freedom Rides aimed at desegregating interstate bus travel in the South. These actions landed Rustin in a North Carolina jail, for which he worked on a chain gang. His published accounts of the experience helped abolish North Carolina’s chain gangs.

Rustin’s agenda became increasingly international in the 1950’s. He campaigned against nuclear weapons and went abroad to support Africans and Asians in their struggles against Western domination. At home, friends as well as foes disapproved of Rustin’s sexuality. He served another jail term, this time for “perverted” behavior (1953). Controversy over his sex life complicated Rustin’s work as an architect of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The movement needed his experience as an activist, organizer, and tactician. He mentored the much younger Martin Luther King, Jr., during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, shaping King’s message and methods. However, Rustin’s radical roots and stigmatized sexuality made him a target for critics seeking to discredit the movement, and civil rights allies feared a scandal.

The King-Rustin partnership put both men on the defensive. Rustin kept a low profile even while coordinating the March on Washington. The demonstration gave King a global audience and led to major civil rights legislation. Rustin took a new role directing the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a liberal think tank (1965-1979). An insider with access to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rustin modified his beliefs and strategies, provoking controversy by supporting the Vietnam War. Discord within the Civil Rights movement took a toll on Rustin, whom some Black Nationalists labeled a traitor. His organization of a memorial march after King’s 1968 assassination was one of Rustin’s last major public acts of the 1960’s. In his later years, Rustin worked against South Africa’s apartheid and committed himself to the struggle for gay and lesbian rights. He died of heart failure at the age of seventy-five in New York City.

Significance

Although Rustin was one of the most important black leaders of the twentieth century, his contributions to the Civil Rights movement—including a key role in the legendary March on Washington—were long overlooked. His refusal to be ashamed of his race and sexuality drove a lifetime of activism to combat discrimination and prejudice in all forms.

Bibliography

Anderson, Jervis. Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen—A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. The first major Rustin biography, aimed at general readers, covers the civil rights leader’s life and work.

D’Emilio, John. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. New York: Free Press, 2003. A lengthy, well-researched scholarly portrait of Rustin as a gay and lesbian rights pioneer.

Podair, Jerald E. Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. A comprehensive account of Rustin’s achievements, suited to academic and general audiences.