Rustin’s story, she explained, would give us the opportunity to explore a civil rights movement that so many of the people I’d interviewed for my book cited as a source of inspiration for their gay rights work-whether they participated directly in that movement, drew inspiration from it, or simply watched from a distance. Rustin died a year before I started work on my oral history book, so I never had the chance to interview him.Īs we began planning for the fourth season of the Making Gay History podcast, MGH’s executive producer, Sara Burningham, suggested we do an episode featuring Bayard Rustin. Credit: Photo by Monroe Frederick courtesy of the Estate of Bayard Rustin.īayard Rustin’s name never came up during those years and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned of Bayard Rustin’s critical role in the movement and the fact that he was gay. King on King’s birthday and included in our rehearsals discussions about the history of the movement. My choir teacher, who was African American, led a concert every year in honor of Dr. My real introduction to the civil rights movement came in junior high school. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry. While I have only the fuzziest memory of the black and white images on the TV screen, I will never forget the tears streaming down my father’s face. Martin Luther King’s funeral on television following King’s assassination in April 1968. He was lying on the sofa in the living room of our small apartment watching Dr. My earliest memory of anything having to do with the civil rights movement is indelible, because it’s one of the rare memories I have of my father, who died in 1970. Credit: Everett Collection/Alamy Stock Photo. Rustin in his role as deputy director of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, pointing to a map of Washington, D.C., as he explains the route to march marshals on August 13, 1963. And he was gay and open about it, which had everything to do with why he remained in the background and is little known today in comparison to other leaders of the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the principal organizer of the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Episode Notesįrom Eric Marcus : Bayard Rustin was a key behind-the-scenes leader of the Black civil rights movement-a proponent of nonviolent protest, a mentor to Dr. Credit: Photo courtesy of Walter Naegle/Estate of Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin (right) and Walter Naegle, 1986.
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