Bayard
Rustin was born in Westchester, Pennsylvania on
March 17, 1912. Rustin was active in the struggle
for human rights and economic justice from the time
he was a small child. He was raised by his grandmother,
Julia Rustin, a pacifist, who was a member of the
NAACP, and passed on her religious and political
beliefs onto Rustin. Rustin was one of the founders
of Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). Members of
this group were pacifists who had been deeply influenced
by Henry David Thoreau and his theories on how to
use nonviolent resistance to achieve social change.
Rustin being a pacifist refused to join the army
and fight for his country during the Second World
War, and he was arrested and imprisoned for the
next three years of his life. Rustin and others
involved in CORE organized the Journey of Reconciliation
in 1947. The idea was to send eight white and eight
black men into the Deep South to test the Supreme
Court ruling that declared segregation in interstate
travel unconstitutional. The Journey of Reconciliation
was to be a two week pilgrimage through Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. In February
1948 the Council Against Intolerance in America
gave Rustin the Thomas Jefferson Award for the Advancement
of Democracy for his attempts to bring an end to
segregation in interstate travel. Rustin was an
instrumental advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. during
the organization of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. Bayard Rustin was well known for not
only his work he did during the civil rights movement
but also for his openly homosexual lifestyle. His
lifestyle was often used to try and denounce events
and marches that Rustin was organizing or was a
part of. Most of the denouncements failed, mostly
due to the support that Martin Luther King Jr. provided
to Rustin throughout his life. Throughout Rustin's
life he was involved in so many movements, marches
and demonstrations. He was a part of the Free India
Movement, the March on Washington which was one
of the most successful marches during the civil
rights movement, he was involved in the trade union
movement, he openly protested the Vietnam War, and
he was openly active in the gay rights movement
and many more. Bayard Rustin was an openly free
spirit who fought and stood up for what he believed
in- no matter the cost. He dedicated his life to
fighting for what he believed in all the way until
his death on August 24, 1987.
