Bayard Rustin - Civil Rights Hero, Balck and Gay

While black pastors continue to allow themselves to be played like violins by the white Christianist descendants of the very people who supported slavery, then segregation and then bans on interracial marriage, most in the black community still close their eyes to the reality that Bayard Rustin, one of Martin Luther King's most important lieutenants, was a gay man. Sadly, the homophobia so rampant in the 1960's forced Rustin to often remain in the shadows. And one result is that due to their own ignorance of accurate history, many black pastors continue to serve as water carriers for groups that in actuality despise them and their communities. One sees it here in Hampton Roads time and time again as black pastors rally on orders from the stealth racists and Christofascists at The Family Foundation based in Richmond. My friend and fellow LGBT Blogger Summit alumni, Irene Monroe, has a piece at Huffington Post that looks at Rustin's role in the battle for civil equality. Here are some highlights:

This month around the country, LGBTQ communities are celebrating Bayard Rustin's 100th birthday anniversary. Next month, AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts will have their annual Bayard Rustin Breakfast, and last month, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association awarded State of the Re:Union, a nationally aired radio show distributed by NPR and PRX, first place in the Excellence in Radio category for the Black History Month special they did on Bayard Rustin, titled "Bayard Rustin: Who Is This Man?"

To date, he's still largely unknown because of the heterosexism that has canonized the history of last century's black civil rights movement.

Rustin was born March 17, 1912 in the Quaker-settled area of West Chester, Penn., one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. A handsome 6-footer who possessed both athletic and academic prowess, he is most noted as the strategist and chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington that catapulted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King onto the world stage. Rustin also played a key role in helping King develop the strategy of nonviolence in the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), which successfully dismantled the longstanding Jim Crow ordinance of segregated seating on public conveyances in Alabama.

During the civil rights movement Bayard Rustin was always the man behind the scene, and a large part of that had to do with the fact that he was gay. As Albert Shanker, then president of the American Federation of Teachers and friend of Rustin's, stated in a review on Jervis Anderson's biography Bayard Rustin: The Troubles I've Seen, Rustin "was the quintessential outsider -- a black man, a Quaker, a one-time pacifist, a political, social dissident, and a homosexual."

African-American ministers involved in the civil rights movement would have nothing to do with Rustin, and they intentionally spread rumors throughout the movement that King was gay because of his close friendship with Rustin.

In a spring 1987 interview with Rustin in Open Hands, a resource for ministries affirming the diversity of human sexuality, Rustin recalls that difficult period quite vividly:

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 a March on Washington volunteer in 1963, Bayard Rustin was Eleanor Holmes Norton's boss. The renowned Congresswoman of D.C. recalls the kerfuffle concerning Rustin's sexuality. "I was sure the attacks would come because I knew what they could attack Bayard for," Norton stated to Steve Hendrix in a 2011 interview. "It flared up and then flared right back down," Norton stated. "Thank God, because there was no substitute for Bayard."

"When the anniversary comes around, frankly I think of Bayard as much as I think of King," stated Norton. "King could hardly have given the speech if the march had not been so well attended and so well organized. If there had been any kind of disturbance, that would have been the story."

To many conservative African Americans Rustin wasn't only "queer" in the literal sense but was perceived also as one who didn't have any of the approved and appropriate black sensibilities.

It is very sad that to this day, many in the black community know little or nothing about Rustin and the debt that they owe him. Hopefully, some day anti-gay black pastors will stop allowing themselves to be cynically manipulated by those who hate them.