Bayard Rustin
In 1988, National Coming Out Day was established on October 11 on the one-year anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Now, all of October is designated LGBT History Month, a time to educate and raise awareness of the accomplishments and struggles of LGBT people. One important contribution of many queer activists has been their attention to intersectionality. Because LGBT persons belong to every race, gender, culture, and physical ability, it is hard to find an LGBT activist who is not also promoting the well-being for other marginalized groups.
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was one such activist.
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Growing up Quaker in West Pennsylvania, Rustin was engrained with a Christian worldview of pacifism. Rustin said his Quaker roots “were based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal.” As an adult, he travelled to India to learn more directly about Ghandi’s ideas around non-violence. It was Rustin who brought this concept to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rustin was arrested multiple times in his life: for being a conscientious objector and avoiding the draft, for a bus sit in, for open homosexuality. His open homosexuality meant he was regularly shuffled into the shadows of the Civil Rights movement so the opposition couldn’t use him to discredit King or other civil rights endeavors. But for Rustin, being open about all of who he was was imperative to the cause of real civil rights.
“It occurred to me shortly after that that [referring to his experience sitting on the white side of the bus] it was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality, because if I didn’t I was a part of the prejudice… “I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me.”
Rustin was a master organizer. His influence on King’s commitment to Direct Non-Violence can not be overstated. Non-violence it not just a commitment to do no harm, it is a willingness to expose injustice by intentionally disrupting and inconveniencing life as usual. It is a commitment to take actions that release captives from exploitation. For Ghandi, the charkha (spinning wheel) was the symbol of this freedom. Ghandi encouraged his fellow countrymen to boycott British material goods by using the traditional spinning wheel to create their own clothing, setting them free from British exploitation, and providing economic self-reliance. Rustin and King took this symbolism to the streets of America, organizing peaceful protest to demand meaningful change in America.
Rustin is perhaps most famous for his work with Philip Randolph organizing the iconic March on Washington, where a quarter of a million people peacefully gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, culminating in MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech. The commitment to pacifism and non-violence meant Rustin thought of everything, even how many bathrooms needed to be available for a crowd this size. It’s hard to control a mass of people, so Rustin worked diligently to motivate the peaceful intentions of anyone who would show.
This week’s comic is a late addition page illustrated for my recently published graphic novel, Incompatible: How the Church Cast Out LGBTQ Christians & Where We Go Next. It is part of a larger story, noticing and calling out intersections of discrimination.