A number of heroes can be considered polymaths; these are individuals who excel in a number of different areas of life. Bayard Rustin was one such multi-talented person. Rustin was an accomplished tenor vocalist, a renowned scholar, and a versatile athlete. But Rustin’s most important contribution to the world may have been his life-long devotion to defending the rights of oppressed groups of people across the globe, especially in America during the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century.
As a young man in the 1940s, Rustin helped convince President Franklin Roosevelt to eliminate racial discrimination in defense industries and in federal agencies. He traveled to California to protect the property of Japanese Americans who had been wrongly imprisoned in internment camps. In the Deep South, Rustin was arrested for violating segregated seating laws on buses, a crime for which he served 22 days on a chain gang. Between 1947 and 1952, Rustin made frequent trips to India and Africa to meet with practitioners of Gandhi’s teachings about non-violent protest philosophies. His subsequent influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. was unmistakable. When Rosa Parks was arrested for bravely defying Jim Crow laws in Montgomery, Alabama, Rustin was there to advise King in practicing non-violent forms of protest, such as organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
But Rustin was limited in the help that he could offer King. A gay man, Rustin lived in an era when homosexuality was unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans. During the Montgomery boycott, a reporter threatened to undermine King’s cause by exposing Rustin’s sexual orientation. King and Rustin agreed that their civil rights crusade would be best served if Rustin distanced himself from King. Rustin was so careful not to undermine King’s work that he fled Montgomery at night in the trunk of a car. Still, Rustin continued to advise King and influence the civil rights movement in significant ways from a safe distance.
It was not just the public and the media who felt threatened by Rustin’s sexuality. Many African American ministers involved in civil rights would also have nothing to do with Rustin, and some spread rumors that King was gay because of his close friendship with Rustin. Said Rustin, “Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality. Martin set up a committee to discover what he should do. They said that, despite the fact that I had contributed tremendously to the organization. They thought I should separate myself from Dr. King.”
As the dream of racial equality made significant headway during the 1970s and 80s, Rustin was painfully aware of the lack of social progress in the area of gay rights. In 1986, he gave a speech entitled The New Niggers Are Gays, in which he asserted that “Blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new ‘niggers’ are gays. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.”
Rustin devoted his entire life to promoting human rights, not only in North America but in other nations such as Haiti, Poland, and Zimbabwe. When asked to summarize his philosophy, he said, “The principal factors which influenced my life are nonviolent tactics; constitutional means; democratic procedures; respect for human personality; and a belief that all people are one.” As with many heroes, Bayard Rustin showed a courageous willingness to sacrifice his own well-being for the noble principle of equality. Throughout his entire life he remained a fierce advocate of civil rights for all people. “When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him,” he said.
Below is a clip about Bayard Rustin’s contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.