By Iya Ta’Shia Asanti

Bayard Rustin’s amazing contributions to the fight for racial equality and social justice were shrouded by religious extremism and cultural intolerance. Even today, most African Americans  look dazed when asked what they know about a man whose work and accomplishments place him among the legendary Black activists of the civil rights movement. They are clueless as to his contributions.   
Bayard Rustin, an openly same-gender-loving Black man, was the official organizer of the historic 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. It was Rustin that brought Gandhi’s genius, style, and method of political activism to the civil rights movement, and who encouraged Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to adopt Gandhi’s policy of nonviolence.
Rustin arrived in Montgomery, Alabama in February of 1956 with the intent of helping to organize what would become one of the most famous boycotts in U.S. history. At that time, the budding activist, Dr. King, hadn’t personally accepted the concept of nonviolence. According to Rustin.org, “There were guns inside Dr. King’s house, and armed guards posted at his doors.”  It was Rustin who convinced Dr. King and other leaders of the movement to embrace nonviolence as a strategy for social change. 
Despite his outstanding work as a leader in the civil rights movement, and because he was an openly same-gender-loving African American man, Rustin battled isolation, rejection and abandonment from the very people he was fighting for, throughout his career. In addition to fending off water hoses, attack dogs and racist police officers, like other Blacks, Rustin also endured being threatened, beaten and fired from important leadership positions simply because of the way he loved.
Bayard Rustin finally got his just due. After five years of research and filming, PBS aired a tell-all biographic documentary highlighting his work in creating the movement that would lead Blacks to racial equality and empowerment. The internationally aired, award-winning film, Brother Outsider, tells the story of the man, the activist and the organizer who devoted his life to facilitate liberation and  freedom for people of African descent. 
Walter Naegle, Rustin’s life partner of 10 years, who now serves as the executor and archivist for Rustin’s estate, keeps the vision of his spouse alive through films, lectures and articles centered on the unsung hero.
Born in 1912, Rustin grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was an accomplished athlete,  musician, and scholar. He attended Wilberforce University, Cheney State College, and the City College of New York. His career as an activist was launched in 1937 when he moved to New York after completing an activist training program with the American Friends Service Committee.
Soon thereafter, Rustin began to work with the famous A. Philip Randolph, president of The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a Black trade union. He also started to work with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). In the position of Race Relations Secretary at FOR, Rustin toured the country delivering a series of lectures designed to help facilitate healing and understanding between the races. This work led him to the position that would catapult him into the aorta of the movement becoming the first Field Secretary of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
In 1947, on behalf of FOR and CORE, Rustin helped organize the first "freedom ride" in the South. Riding on the coat tails of a 1946 Supreme Court decision outlawing discrimination in interstate travel, Rustin took his work to the highway. He was arrested in North Carolina and subsequently served 22 days on the tortuous chain gangs of the South which subjected prisoners to non-stop grueling work under the most severe conditions. Rustin’s account of that experience was serialized and published in the New York Post. 
Following his role model, Gandhi, whose tactics he studied during activism-related visits to India, Rustin took his work to an international platform. His first stop was Africa, where Rustin fought against, Britain’s colonial rule. For this, he was subsequently arrested.
In the early 1950s, Rustin joined forces with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, elders and leaders of freedom movements in their respective countries. In 1951 he played a central role in organizing the Committee to Support South African Resistance, which later became the American Committee on Africa.
In 1956, Rustin took a leave of absence from his position with CORE to assist Dr. King  in planning the Montgomery Bus Boycott. His knack for political organizing made him a major force behind the march. It was during this period that Rustin became one of King’s most trusted and important confidants. 
Other influential positions held by Rustin during his career, include organizer of the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957, the National Youth Marches for Integrated Schools in 1958 and 1959, and Deputy Director and chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In 1964, Rustin helped found the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), named for his mentor.
During the mid-1960s, Rustin helped launch the Recruitment and Training Program (R-T-P, Inc.), a project that addressed racial discrimination in the construction industry. 
His belief in equal rights for all led him to become the Vice Chairman of the International Rescue Committee. In this capacity, he visited countries across the globe to ensure refugees had enough food, proper medical care and adequate education. He also helped found the National Emergency Coalition for Haitian Refugees.
As Chairman of the Executive Committee of Freedom House, an organization that keeps a watchful eye on the political and human rights of voters in Third World nations, Rustin monitored elections in Zimbabwe, El Salvador, and Grenada. During the last of Rustin’s international travels, he worked in Haiti to help facilitate democratic reform.
At the time of his death, Bayard Rustin was co-chairman of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and President of the A. Philip Randolph Educational Fund. He was also chairman of Social Democrats USA, a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, and a life member of Actors' Equity. Rustin also served on numerous boards and committees, and was the recipient of more than a dozen honorary doctorates.
As a man who accomplished more in his short time on earth than the average human being accomplishes over a lifetime, Rustin deserved more than the treatment to which he was often subjected. Nevertheless, Rustin’s work and vision continues to inspire greater understanding, healing and peace around the world.
Editor’s note: For more information about the work of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, write The Bayard Rustin Fund, Inc. 340 West 28th Street,  Apt. 9J, New York, New York 10001, call 212-242-5859, or e-mail  rustin@rcn.com.
Editor’s note: Iya Ta’Shia Asanti is the founder of the International African Pride and Power Organization and is managing editor of Urban Spectrum newspaper.