Photo by Stanley Wolfson - Library of Congress - Public Domain
Bayard Rustin in 1965
Bayard Rustin
Over the years, Black History Month has become ever more inclusive, recognizing the pantheon of Black LGBTQ heroes and historic figures. They represent the spectrum from visual and performing arts, to literature, activism and politics. Still, for the most part, those personalities are celebrated solely by the LGBTQ community primarily because their historical contributions have been made within that community. The unfortunate reality is that for some, particularly the activists and politicians among them, the lack of broader recognition is due to the fact that they are LGBTQ.
The greatest among them, civil rights champion Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), is one such person. In Rustin’s case, the effort to change that has been slow but sure.
Among Rustin’s chief proponents in that effort is President Barack Obama. In 2013, President Obama honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. It was presented posthumously, 50 years after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom organized by the civil rights leader. The event drew 250,000 participants with its most memorable moment being Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The March would lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The recognition of Rustin as the architect of its success was long overdue.
In late 2023, Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, released the film Rustin, a biographical drama that stars Colman Domingo in the title role (he’s expected to win an Oscar for the performance). The film recounts Rustin’s efforts to organize the March on Washington.
Motivation for Justice
However, the real story is Rustin’s homosexuality and how it was both the inadvertent motivation for his commitment to social justice and as well as the cause of his subsequent erasure from the historical dais by both his allies and enemies. For Rustin’s Black political colleagues (and rivals) his sexual identity provided them with the means to relegate him to a behind the scenes role while they took credit for the success of the March. Meanwhile, for his white detractors, attacking his morality served as a means of undermining the civil rights movement itself. Besides, neither could accept the truth that such an extraordinary moment could have been orchestrated by a gay man for the greater good of the country.
This supreme disservice has deprived subsequent generations of LGBTQs, especially of the Black community, of an inspiration and example to emulate. As the film so sensitively reveals, Rustin’s legacy should have established him on a par with Dr. Martin Luther King as a civil rights leader. His engagement as a social justice advocate began at an early age when he fought against racist Jim Crow laws and their segregationist policies.
Throughout the decades beginning in the 1930s he was active in numerous political causes including desegregation, unionization of Black workers, non-violence and, later LGBTQ rights. He did it all as a matter of moral conviction. Rustin is exactly that hero the community has always needed.
Hopefully, organizations like Diverse & Resilient that serve the LGBTQ community of color, the LGBT Community Center and the Milwaukee Black Holocaust Museum will take advantage of Barack and Michelle Obama’s gift and hold Rustin viewing events. Black History Month offers the perfect rationale to promote this positive and honest retelling of Rustin’s story.
Rustin Park?
Meanwhile, locally, another effort to raise the awareness of Bayard Rustin is being launched by Bill Meunier. A long-term gay political activist, Meunier’s many roles in Milwaukee’s LGBTQ progress, include his founding of PrideFest and managing the LGBTQ faction supporting Jesse Jackson’s Wisconsin presidential campaign in the 1980’s. His idea is to garner a broad spectrum of diverse and multi-cultural community support for a campaign to rename a Milwaukee County park after Bayard Rustin.
The purpose of such renaming would not only be to honor Rustin’s contributions to the struggle for both civil and LGBTQ rights, but also to create a public space as inspiration and source of pride for all Milwaukeeans, especially those of color. It would also serve as reminder of the importance of Rustin-style activism, especially in these troubled times when rights of major segments of American society are threatened by those same political forces that opposed the civil rights movement three score years ago.
