Shaquille Blackstock
          Staff Writer

Bayard Rustin was the organizer of the March on Washington in August of 1963. This march would be the setting of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and arguably, the most important day of the Civil Rights leader’s career. He would go from a pastor with a passion for equality, to the most recognizable name of the movement, and American history will likely never forget him.

However, how many people know the name of Bayard Rustin, who was instrumental in orchestrating countless protests, and who was an openly gay black man? Why isn’t the public more aware of his struggles and his accomplishments? Some would even argue that history has purposely tried to forget him.

In 1963, the Civil Rights Movement was blazing across America, affecting African Americans, as well as other minorities of racial, political and sexual categories that make up our society. It is important to remember the Chicano movement or the Stonewall Riots, even during Black History month, because those were parts of the Civil Rights struggle as well.

We know the names of Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael, but a lot of people in today’s society will draw a blank at Bayard Rustin, and this should not be the case.

Without Bayard Rustin, who was the individual that influenced King to adopt the peaceful protest techniques of Ghandi, the course of the Civil Rights movement would have been entirely different.

At the time Rustin met King in 1955, King had guns in his house, and armed men outside of it. If Rustin had not organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, who knows if the movement would have gained the traction that it did?

Born in Pennsylvania in 1912, Rustin was a socialist, and started organizing for the civil rights movement in 1947 with George Houser, developing the first of the Freedom Rides, which he called the “Journey of Reconciliation.”

Bayard Rustin would be a part of an organization called the “Congress of Racial Equality and SNCC,” which would put him on the path of meeting King and organizing the march. He would also influence other activists, like Carmichael, through his work of organizing students in the South.

Rustin had to be prepared for homophobic attacks from those who thought his sexuality “immoral” or “perverse,” as well as those who thought his political ideology was reprehensible. The Red Scare of the 50s’ clung to the minds of the public like fresh red paint to a new car, and at one point, Rustin was slandered by Senator Strom Thurmond as a “communist, draft dodger and homosexual.”

Regardless, this was the very year he organized the March on Washington.

These were times of fierce discrimination on many fronts, and it’s interesting that Rustin prioritized racial activism over activism for LGBT rights. While he was openly gay at a time when that was rare, he was clearly strategic about this, and rarely gave public speeches.

Rustin did this because he knew that the civil rights movement would not have had the same traction if he were more visible.

King was a Christian minister, and perhaps Rustin thought that his sexuality would somehow mar the image of the movement’s leader.

“Intersectionality theory” was coined by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw two years after Rustin’s death in 1987, but it is a term that is symbolized by Rustin’s identity. He strived for the equality of all races, genders and varying political ideologies among the classes—this is all one fight, one consolidated movement.

As such, Martin Luther King Jr. was a part of a movement that got national attention, in part, because he collaborated with a gay socialist, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom in 2013 by President Obama.

Rustin, along with people like Claudette Colvin, are a part of a rarely discussed section of history that involves people whose lives don’t easily fit into a heteronormative narrative or one that easily fits pre-established morals. However, they serve as proof that to truly win fights for equality; the public must reach across these categories that define them to reach the ultimate goal together.