Civil Rights Celebration

Today commemorates the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the inspiring, peaceful man whose life was committed to social and civil change. It’s a day most schools and offices take off to celebrate, even though most do not think of the opportunity to stay home to be in remembrance of a great leader – the day could be in commemoration of just about anything as long as we can stay home. But King was a unique, strong and courageous individual whom we all can learn from in our own times of civil unrest. The idea of nonviolent revolution is essential to change on all fronts.

But who taught King how to be nonviolent and successful? Who was behind King and the protests? King wasn’t alone. Indeed, he had much help and many supporters. If he didn’t, no change would have occurred. Black Americans would still be disenfranchised and segregated. On this day I believe it to be important to not only acknowledge King, but at least one other man whom King depended: Bayard Rustin.

Rustin can be thought of as King’s right-hand man. He helped organize the 1963 March on Washington as well as the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. He debated Malcolm X about nonviolence, learning such a technique from followers of Gandhi. He turned around and taught King everything he knew. He is, and should be, considered an architect of the civil rights movement. Have you heard of him? Me neither. If he was so important to King’s movement, there must be a reason for his historical invisibility, right? There was.

Bayard Rustin was gay.

Rustin was seen as being unashamed of his sexuality, even in the incredibly homophobic climate of 1940s America. According to 365gay.com, “[Rustin's] comfort with his gayness ended in 1953 in Padadena, Calif., when he was caught by the police in the backseat of a car with two other men.” After his conviction for the crime of “sexual perversion,” Rustin was forced to tone himself down in the public realm. His charge became a tool King’s opponents, like Senator Strom Thurmond, would use against both King and Rustin, linking the civil rights movement with sexual and moral deviation.

Unfortunately, this 1953 incident would not fizzle out quietly, but would haunt King’s campaign until the end. “Though they were later reconciled, Rustin’s strongest falling out with King…came when Sen. Adam Clayton Powell threatened that he would accuse King and Rustin of having a sexual affair,” according to 365gay.com. Such a lofty allegation not only proves how virile the label of homosexual was 50 some-odd years ago, but it also attests to just how close Rustin and King were; the two were no doubt linked for their mutual campaign against segregation, and were probably seen together often in public. I, for one, cannot understand how Rustin has been kept a secret from the American public for so long.

Even after rights were secured for the Black population, Rustin continued his activism, serving such groups as the Soviet Jews and Israel, refugees and, to be sure, the gay and lesbian rights movement until his death in 1987. In one famous quote as reported by 365gay.com, Rustin said, “Indeed, if you want to know whether today people believe in democracy, if you want to know whether they are true democrats, if you want to know whether they are human rights activists, the question to ask is, ‘What about gay people?’ Because that is now the litmus paper by which this democracy is to be judged.” Powerful words for the gay community, no doubt.

Is this true? Has the black movement become today’s gay movement? In many ways, this is definitely true. We don’t have the right to marry or adopt in the majority of America. We are the victims of hate crimes and discrimination. But we’ve never been denied the right to vote. We’ve never been enslaved. We we’ve never been segregated from heterosexuals. The similarities are there, but it is by no means a complete parallel. Nevertheless, the LGBT community can be seen as the modern Black community politically – we are an underrepresented minority group whom the presidential candidates either attempt to ignore, attempt to legislate against, or attempt to help. I wonder what Rustin would say now, 21 years after passing, if he saw the state of both blacks and gays in the United States today…

Great men and women have too often been erased from the history books for being minorities or deviants in some way or another. It is about time we rewrite history to include them. That is why today, January 21, 2008, I commend Bayard Rustin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s friend and adviser, for his selfless, important role in the black civil rights movement. May he never be forgotten again.

~ by peacewriter313 on January 21, 2008.