Giving Bayard Rustin, Gay Architect of the 1963 March on Washington His Due

On this Dr. Martin Luther King Day, GMHC celebrates all Dr. King did for racial equality in America. We also honor one of the civil rights movement's unsung heroes, the openly gay architect of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin. Here is a snapshot of American history that isn't taught in schools. 

It was a day that will survive forever, even as one of the principal architects of the event is largely overlooked. While many of the names associated with the 1963 March on Washington, such as Dr. King, are eternally etched in the narrative of our nation, Bayard Rustin's is not. But make no mistake about it; this historical slight should not minimize, in any capacity, the significance of the role he played that day. 

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people marched on Washington. Dr. King electrified the marchers by asking for citizens to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Future Georgia Congressman John Lewis, just 23 years old at the time and serving as the National Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, began his career of causing "good trouble" by demanding at the march that the federal civil rights bill include a provision that would protect both the right to vote and the right to protest peacefully.  

Political activist and American folk singer Joan Baez awed the crowd with a rendition of "We Shall Overcome." At the same time, Len Chandler and Bob Dylan joined her to perform "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," a classic folk song of the civil rights movement and one of the defining songs of the era. 

Bayard Rustin was not only a close advisor to Martin Luther King and a celebrated civil rights strategist but he was considered among the most influential and effective organizers of the time. He studied in India under the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence and provided King with a deeper understanding of ideas and tactics that would prove inordinately successful. King quickly realized the logistical advantages and leverage Rustin could provide the movement and brought him on board as a trusted mentor. Rustin's extraordinary ability to organize was ultimately demonstrated on that seasonably mild day in late August 1963 by the unprecedented turnout at (what King referred to as) the "greatest demonstration for freedom" in American history. 

“Bayard Rustin was a Black gay man at a time in history when having a Black gay man as a leader in your organization was considered a substantial liability.”

Suppose Rustin's story started and ended with his significant strategic campaign abilities. In that case, our history books may well have remembered him, along with King, Lewis, W.E.B. DuBois, and Malcolm X, as a movement pioneer. But Rustin's legacy goes well beyond his remarkable ability to communicate, facilitate, and mobilize. 

Bayard Rustin was a Black gay man at a time in history when having a Black gay man as a leader in your organization was considered a substantial liability. This was certainly the case with Rustin when some prominent civil rights advocates, including Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, and one of the last to speak at the March on Washington, refused to allow Rustin to be seen as a featured proprietor of such a monumental moment. So, more often than not, Rustin operated behind the scenes not because he was a gay man but because he didn't necessarily concern himself with who knew.  

Bayard was quoted on this matter: "Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality." 

It is not a stretch to suggest that Rustin's sexual orientation dogged him throughout his life as an activist, including an arrest for "lewd conduct" after delivering a speech in Pasadena in 1953, an attack on the Senate floor by South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond just three weeks before the March on Washington in 1963, and a devastatingly malicious propaganda piece from Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who threatened to out King and Rustin as "gay lovers" if he did not call off a planned march outside the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. 

None of these assaults ever discouraged Rustin's voracious appetite for activism. When he spoke more about his sexuality during the start of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, he brought the same humanity and passion to the gay rights movement as he did to the civil rights cause 30 years before. 

Bayard Rustin died of cardiac arrest linked to a ruptured appendix on August 24, 1987. He was 75 years old and had dedicated his entire life to fighting a society entrenched in racism and homophobia. All he ever wanted was to lift the spirits of the underserved and offer a helping hand to the disadvantaged. And as more and more details about the extraordinary life experiences of Bayard Rustin are revealed, his name is slowly emerging from the shadows. 

In 2023, Netflix will release a Bayard Rustin biopic tentatively titled "Rustin" from Higher Ground Productions, a film studio founded by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, that will help to tell the story of a remarkable life. Someday soon, we can only hope that our history books follow suit. 

On this national holiday, GMHC, with its long history of advocacy and activism, honors Bayard Rustin, along with Dr. Martin Luther King.