A Salute to Black Queer Icon Bayard Rustin

Happy Pride and Happy #BlackOut! I know things seem hopeless right now, but I think it is necessary to put our struggles into historical perspective. I for one take solace knowing that we stand on the soldiers of civil rights giants who faced impossible odds to achieve even the semblance of equality under the law. They got through it, and so will we . . . together.

In the meantime, I am pleased to present to you one Mr. Bayard Rustin:

Relegated to the background of civil rights history because of his sexual identity, openly gay activist Bayard Rustin was best known as the architect of the March on Washington.

After finishing high school, Rustin held odd jobs, traveled widely, and obtained five years of university schooling at the City College of New York and other institutions without taking a degree.

In 1953 Rustin was arrested in California after he was discovered having sex with a man. He served 50 days in jail and was registered as a sex offender. While his sexual orientation resulted in him taking a less public role, he was hugely influential within the civil rights movement. In the mid-1950s Rustin became a close adviser to the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and he was the principal organizer of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rustin later was the chief architect of the March on Washington (August 1963), a massive demonstration to rally support for civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress. After serving in various civil rights roles, he became involved in the gay rights movement at the dawning of the HIV/AIDS crisis. In 2013 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was subsequently pardoned for his 1953 conviction.

We salute you, Mr. Rustin - one of our first out Black Queer icons.

For more about the life of Bayard Rustin, please visit the comprehensive article by the Guardian.