Know Your Queer History: Bayard Rustin!! Mr. Rustin was an openly gay African American civil rights leader and advisor, who taught Dr King the ways of nonviolent political protest. He challenged the Montgomery Bus Boycott, School Segregation, and the Jim Crow laws. He helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. Though revered for his strength and intelligence, he was often asked to take a position behind his equals in the forefront of the civil rights stage, due to his homosexuality. In his later years he took up fighting on the Gay Liberation civil rights movements. President Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. And this year Gov Gavin Newsom pardoned Rustin posthumously for discriminatory ‘moral’ charges he had been arrested for in 1953. This man is an absolute idol of mine. To learn his story, is to learn our history… Recommended Reading: Time on Two Crosses (Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin)!!
