Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin was a central figure in the civil rights movement in United States the 1950s and 1960s. He was well versed in non-violent protest and helped to shape the movement as an advisor and collaborator. Due to his homosexuality, however, he remained in the background sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity.
Bayard Rustin at news briefing on the Civil Rights March on Washington in the Statler Hotel
Bayard Rustin was born in 1912 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was raised by his maternal grandmother whose Quaker faith had a direct impact on his approach to the world, his commitment to non-violence, and the way he lived his life as an out and proud queer black man. His activism began early and he was kicked out of the fist college he attended, Wilbeforce University, for organizing a strike.
In 1953 he was arrested in Pasadena, California for having sex with another man in a parked car. While he had been open about his sexuality amongst friends and family he tried to keep that part of his identity private in order to prevent it from being used to attack his work for civil rights and desegregation. This arrest was the first time his homosexuality had been made public and, as he feared, it would be used by segregationists and white supremacists in an effort to undermine the civil rights movement.
One example of how Bayard’s homosexuality required him to remain in the background is the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He began working on the logistics of the march in 1962 and worked tirelessly to ensure it would remain a non-violent event - he recruited off-duty police officers as marshals, used bus captains to direct traffic, etc. Among the civil rights leaders was a fear Bayard’s “liabilities” were too big of a threat so he was listed as the deputy director of the march. Among opponents of civil rights Bayard’s arrest in 1953 provided an avenue of attack, exemplified by U.S. Senator Strom Thurmmond’s attack on the Senate floor where he referred to Bayard as a “Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual” and had the entire Pasadena arrest file entered into the Congressional record.
Bayard Rustin remained a key figure and advisor throughout the civil rights movement, and by the 1980s became more publicly involved in the fight for gay rights. By this time, according to him, “The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.” His entry into LGBTQ+ activism was due to the urging of his partner, Walter Naegle, who he would later adopt in order to ensure some measure of legal protection in an era before same-sex marriage equality. He also worked to make the NAACP more responsive to the unfolding AIDS crisis.
Bayard Rustin died in 1987. Due to his sexuality and behind-the-scenes work he has often been regarded as a forgotten civil rights leader. The 2003 documentary film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin and the 2012 centennial of his birth helped bring renewed attention to his legacy as a black civil rights pioneer and a proudly open gay man. In 2013 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
