The Silenced Leader: The Life of Bayard Rustin
Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a good week. I’ve really been enjoying the non-stop rain that’s been pouring in Raleigh the past couple of weeks. I’m really excited about the snow that should be pouring in this afternoon too. Winter is the worst.
ANYWAY, my goal is to put a little warmth in your soul and knowledge in your brain this week. I want to continue our dive into black queer culture and history during the month of February. Before we dive into today’s post, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever not been able to find something, only to find that it was right there in front of you? True story: I once tried to find my glasses, only to realize that they were on my face, and I was using them to try to find them. When I realized that, I realized that I may not be getting enough sleep. It reminds me of the saying, “If it was a snake, it would’ve bit me!” It means that the thing you were looking for was so close, it was in striking distance of you, or right in front of you. This plays perfectly into this week’s topic.
Can you name (without looking at the title of the post) the person who mentored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on nonviolence, helped organize the March on Washington in 1964, and helped create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC)? He was also praised by Ronald Reagan for going across the political divide to help workers’ rights. Still nothing? That’s not surprising. Not many people do. His name is Bayard Rustin. He was a powerful influence in the Civil Rights movement. Why don’t you know who he is? You don’t know him because he’s gay.
Bayard Rustin was born in 1912, and raised by his grandparents. He was born into a politically active family. His grandmother was a member of the NAACP, and African-American icons such as W.E.B. DuBois and James Weldon Johnson were frequent visitors to his grandparents’ home. With that foundation, he started advocating for change at an early age. His activism continued into college, when he was expelled from Wilberforce University for organizing a strike.
Another important component of Rustin’s life was his Quaker upbringing. Quakers are known for their stances of non-violence and pacifism. Many abolitionists in nineteenth century America were Quakers. Quakers, also known as Friends, stress that God is constantly speaking to us and guiding us through the Holy Spirit. In fact, some Quaker or Friend meetings, or worship services, are solely structured on the members receiving word from the Holy Spirit. That style is called “waiting worship”. His Quaker roots were complimented by the teachings of Gandhi and his socialist beliefs to form the foundation for his activism. There was one part of Rustin’s life though that kept him from being at the forefront of the civil rights movement: his sexual orientation.
In 1953, Rustin was arrested in Pasadena, California for “sex perversion”, which is what consensual sex between two men was called at the time, and sentenced to 60 days in prison. This conviction was used many times to attack Rustin and to discredit his hard work. US Senator Strom Thurmond put the arrest record into public record right before the March on Washington and called Rustin, a “Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual”. However, Rustin was unapologetic in his sexual orientation and was candid about it in private.
One instance that really attests to that bravery and boldness in Rustin’s life was when he was arrested outside of Nashville for trying to desegregate interstate bus travel. He was quoted that he had to do it not only because he was black, but because he was gay too:
“As I was going by the second seat to go to the rear, a white child reached out for the ring necktie I was wearing and pulled it,” he recalled in the newly released audio. “Whereupon its mother said, ‘Don’t touch a n*****.’ “
As Rustin tells it, here’s what ran through his mind in that moment after the white woman called him the slur: “If I go and sit quietly at the back of that bus now, that child, who was so innocent of race relations that it was going to play with me, will have seen so many blacks go in the back and sit down quietly that it’s going to end up saying, ‘They like it back there, I’ve never seen anybody protest against it.’ “
Instead, he saw this moment as an opportunity, and an obligation, to disrupt what he saw as the inheritance of a prejudiced education in practice.
“I owe it to that child,” he told himself, “that it should be educated to know that blacks do not want to sit in the back, and therefore I should get arrested, letting all these white people in the bus know that I do not accept that.”
To Rustin, asserting his identity as an African-American went hand-in-hand with identifying as a gay man. “It occurred to me shortly after that that it was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality, because if I didn’t I was a part of the prejudice,” he said. “I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me.”
Rustin’s strength through nonviolence was new for someone like Dr. King. The Montgomery Bus Boycotts were just starting and Rustin advised King to practice nonviolence through his work. Even though he was continuing to gain influence with King, other leaders in the Civil Rights movement wanted him pushed to the side. He was seen as a liability due to political leanings and his sexuality. Nevertheless, he was still the main coordinator, along with A. Philip Randolph, of the March on Washington.
Bayard Rustin was a pioneer in many ways. Not only did he help pave the way for many civil rights pioneers and victories in America, but he did it as an unashamed black gay man. His former partner, Davis Platt, said this about Rustin:
“He gave off an aura of being artistic. I don’t mean effeminate, but he probably looked effeminate to some people. He was tall and walked with self confidence,” Platt explained. “If anybody asked him, he would have told the truth, whereas most gay people back then would deny it.”
That’s not only admirable, but heroic. In a time where his sexuality and his race were considered wrong or illegal, he stood tall and proud. He stayed proud of who he was until he passed away at the age of 75 on August 24, 1987. In 2013, President Obama posthumously gave Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country, for his work in the Civil Rights movement. In 2014, Rustin was one of the original honorees on the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco’s Castro district honoring LGBTQ pioneers. Finally, earlier this month, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a pardon for his arrest in 1953, clearing him of any wrongdoing. Rustin finally got the recognition he deserved during his lifetime.
I cannot empathize with all of Rustin’s plights. I’ll never know what it’s like to be an African American man in this country, nor an African-American gay man. However, I do know the feeling of being pushed to the sides or margins as a gay man in this world. It’s aggravating and disheartening to be punished for something that you can’t control. Rustin showed immeasurable bravery and heroism in his life. He is someone that people should know, and that students should learn about in schools.
Rustin is an example of a missing something that’s right in front of you. He directly influenced Dr. King, and organized one of the seminal moments in 20th century American history, but many people have never heard of him. His influence in the civil rights world was suppressed because he was gay. Unfortunately, his influence in the LGBTQ world has probably been minimized because he’s black. That’s shameful and a travesty. I want this blog to be a bridge between the LGBTQ and Christian worlds. Rustin is a reliable, strong, and influential bridge that both worlds should be very proud of claiming.
