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Meet Bayard Rustin, often-forgotten civil rights activist, gay rights advocate, union organizer, pacifist and man of compassion for all in trouble

Jerald Podair, Professor of History, Lawrence University, The Conversation on

Published in Political News

A pacifist, Rustin protested World War II by resisting the draft and, as a result, was imprisoned in 1944 as a conscientious objector.

After his release in 1946, Rustin became a major figure for the next two decades in two prominent pacifist organizations, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters League, both of which opposed the use of violence to settle disputes between individuals or nations.

In 1947, he and members of the Congress of Racial Equality planned the Journey of Reconciliation, the first organized effort to desegregate interstate bus transportation in the South.

Because of that work to integrate public transportation, Randolph suggested in 1956 that Rustin meet with a young preacher in Alabama who was organizing a bus boycott there.

That meeting with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956 changed both men forever.

From then on Rustin advised King on the principles of Gandhi and nonviolent direct action that – when combined with lawsuits, voter registration drives and lobbying efforts – ultimately led to passage of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

For Rustin, Black progress depended on politics and economics. To that end, in 1966 Rustin proposed the “Freedom Budget for All Americans” that promised every American employment, an income and access to health care.

His proposal became the template for progressive political activists in the 21st century.

Rustin is best remembered as the organizer and orchestrator of arguably the seminal event in American civil rights history – the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

But it almost did not happen.

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