...Stevenson HIST 300 Professor Katz December 11, 2014 Bayard Rustin and the Lost Prophet A master strategist and an activist for Civil Rights, Bayard Rustin is mostly remembered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which has been one of the most famous of the non-violent marches in United States history. He had used Gandhi’s tactics of non-violence by introducing it to the American civil rights movement, while at the same time, bringing Martin Luther King, Jr. to the forefront as the focal point for nonviolence and peace. Despite the achievements that Rustin had accomplished during his career as an activist, he was beaten, silenced, imprisoned, and fired from different organizations mainly because of the fact that he was a gay man living at a time that homosexuality was not only frowned upon, but also it was outlawed. In this paper, I will explain all the contributions that Bayard Rustin had made to the Civil Rights movement during the mid to late 20th century and why he is not given credit for the other activities that he was responsible for. Writers and historians such as Lawrence Freedman have stated that Bayard Rustin was content with his status as an “intellectual engineer behind the scenes” 1. In their view, Rustin was a powerful man with such a powerful political philosophy that the leadership at the time had begun to constrict him. Other historians have argued that the main reason why Rustin was written out of the history books is because he stayed...
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...What if everything you knew about the March on Washington, and other large portions of the civil rights movement, was skewed due a lie of omission? Everyone has heard of Martin Luther King Jr., but few have heard of the man who was a mentor of Dr. King and planned the entire March on Washington. It is my pleasure to introduce you to the man who has been described as a “lost prophet” of the civil rights movement. On Sunday, November 15, at 2:00pm, my mom and I went to see the last showing of a wonderful play called, “Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin.” The play was focused around the man who planned the Civil Rights March on Washington and who was a civil rights leader. His name was Bayard Rustin and the reason that he has almost...
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...Bayard Rustin, born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Rustin was raised by his relatively wealthy maternal grandparents. He was the nine out of there twelve children. He started wondering why his grandparents were raising him. As Rustin got older he found out that his older sister was his biological mother. Julia Rustin(his grandmother) was apart of the National Association for the Advancement of colored people(NAACP) and attended her husbands African Methodist Episcopal church. As Rustin grew up he often had the company of NAACP leaders in and around his household due to his mother's commitment to the organization. James Weldon Johnson was one of the many NAACP leader welcome in his household. Having these people in and around his life as a young kid, Rustin grew up with the knowledge of racial discrimination and had a strong opinion against it. Soon he was campaigning against racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws. In 1932 Rustin attended his first college in Ohio but then was soon kicked out of the college and his fraternity for organizing a strike. The second college he attended went by the name of Cheyney State Teachers College in Pennsylvania. In 1937 he completed an activist training program put on by the American Friends Service Committee(AFSC). Then after completing the...
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...held in the city of Washington, D.C. in the year of 1963. This political demonstration was held by civil rights leaders to protest the racial discrimination happening in the country at the time and also to show the support for very important civil rights legislation that was on hold in Congress. All they wanted was to peaceably have equal justice for all United States citizens under the law. The day of March on Washington, the 28th of August in 1963, on the nation’s capital, a quarter of a million americans converged from all over the united states of America. This day was by far a defining moment in the history of the Civil Rights movement. The plans for this March On Washington started in 1962....
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...Thurman Civil rights leader, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman was an early influence on King. A classmate of King's father at Morehouse College,[21] Thurman mentored the young King and his friends.[22] Thurman's missionary work had taken him abroad where he had met and conferred with Mahatma Gandhi.[23] When he was a student at Boston University, King often visited Thurman, who was the dean of Marsh Chapel.[24] Walter Fluker, who has studied Thurman's writings, has stated, "I don't believe you'd get a Martin Luther King, Jr. without a Howard Thurman".[25] Gandhi and Rustin With assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee, and inspired by Gandhi's success with non-violent activism, King visited Gandhi's birthplace in India in 1959.[8]:3 The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America's struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, "Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation."[8]:135–6 African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin had studied...
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...significant impact to history are Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcom X. While both Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X were both prominent individuals to African American community and history, their choice of religion guided them to react to violence in a different way. Nevertheless, their names will forever be written in history for their actions that lead to change American as it is today. To begin, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. King was the middle child two other siblings and also a Civil Rights Activist and Minister . Throughout his life, Dr. King studied and believed in Christianity. King attended college and studied in sociology. Later after graduating he studies in systematic theology for his doctoral degree. Although slavery was...
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...Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks was famously arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. National awareness After Parks' arrest, King came to national prominence in the US. He was a leading figure in organising the boycott by African Americans of buses in Montgomery. "It was thrust upon him in many respects," says John A. Kirk, Chair of History at the University of Arkansas. "In 1955-56 he came to prominence. He didn't seek out leadership. They needed a leader...King was a neutral choice. He was young and new to town and wasn't a threat." Tutelage from Bayard Rustin, a prominent civil rights campaigner, helped King to commit to a principle of non-violent action heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's success in opposing the British in India. In 1957, King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with fellow activists C.K. Steele, Fred Shuttle worth and T.J....
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...A. Philip Randolph Daneka Ruiz Born on April 15, 1889 in Crescent City, Florida, Reverend James W. and Elizabeth Randolph gave birth to their second son, Asa Philip Randolph. James worked as a tailor and minister, while Elizabeth worked as a seamstress. Both of his parents were supporters of equality for African Americans as well as general human rights. Being black during that era meant having to live through difficult circumstances while striving to survive. Through the guidance and nurture from his parents, Asa inherited his compassion and drive towards racial inequality. In 1891, the Randolph’s moved to Jacksonville, Florida, which had a positive, and well-established African American community. Asa and his brother were superior students. Their parents always made sure that the boys had many books to read. The collection of books was small, but powerful. They were exposed to Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, and many more of the greats. They attended the Cookman institute, one of the first schools of higher education for African Americans. Throughout his high school career Asa excelled in many subjects and was noticed for his articulate and confident voice, which he had inherited from his father. Reverend James continuously supported him by letting him know that he was gifted. With those gifts, Asa went on to pursue public speaking, drama, and singing. He graduated as class valedictorian. James and Elizabeth instilled many important values...
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...Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks was famously arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. National awareness After Parks' arrest, King came to national prominence in the US. He was a leading figure in organising the boycott by African Americans of buses in Montgomery. "It was thrust upon him in many respects," says John A. Kirk, Chair of History at the University of Arkansas. "In 1955-56 he came to prominence. He didn't seek out leadership. They needed a leader...King was a neutral choice. He was young and new to town and wasn't a threat." Tutelage from Bayard Rustin, a prominent civil rights campaigner, helped King to commit to a principle of non-violent action heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's success in opposing the British in India. In 1957, King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with fellow activists C.K. Steele, Fred Shuttleworth and T.J. Jemison. As SCLC president, King was tasked with...
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...Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Rosa Parks was famously arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. National awareness After Parks' arrest, King came to national prominence in the US. He was a leading figure in organising the boycott by African Americans of buses in Montgomery. "It was thrust upon him in many respects," says John A. Kirk, Chair of History at the University of Arkansas. "In 1955-56 he came to prominence. He didn't seek out leadership. They needed a leader...King was a neutral choice. He was young and new to town and wasn't a threat." Tutelage from Bayard Rustin, a prominent civil rights campaigner, helped King to commit to a principle of non-violent action heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's success in opposing the British in India. In 1957, King established the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with fellow activists C.K. Steele, Fred Shuttle worth and T.J....
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...The Jobs and Freedom March on Washington on August 28, 1963 was one of the largest human rights protest in the history of the country. With over 200,000 people in attendance, it was one of the first civil rights rallies to get such extensive media coverage. The march was a resounding popular success and paved the way for the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even though the African Americans were no longer slaves, had citizenship status with full voting rights for men, they faced intimidation when they went out to vote and were prohibited from interracial marriage in many states. There was also widespread discrimination against them in the army and government. The African Americans were subjected to segregation and during World War I...
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...At the midpoint of the twentieth century, African Americans once again answered the call to transform the world. The social and economic ravages of Jim Crow era racism were all-encompassing and deep-rooted. Yet like a phoenix rising from the ashes of lynch mobs, debt peonage, residential and labor discrimination, and rape, the black freedom movement raised a collective call of "No More"! The maintenance of white power had been pervasive and even innovative, and hence those fighting to get out from under its veil had to be equally unrelenting and improvisational in strategies and tactics. What is normally understood as the Civil Rights movement was in fact a grand struggle for freedom extending far beyond the valiant aims of legal rights and protection. From direct-action protests and boycotts to armed self-defense, from court cases to popular culture, freedom was in the air in ways that challenged white authority and even contested established black ways of doing things in moments of crisis. Dixie and Beyond By the middle of the twentieth century, black people had long endured a physical and social landscape of white supremacy, embedded in policy, social codes, and both intimate and spectacular forms of racial restriction and violence. The social and political order of Jim Crow—the segregation of public facilities—meant schools, modes of transportation, rest rooms, and even gravesites were separate and unequal. Yet the catch-all phrase "Jim Crow" hardly accounts for the...
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...Randolph – march on Washington 1941 2. Ruth Powell, Marianne Musgrave and Juanita Marrow arrest caused the formation of a Civil Rights Committee from campus organization leaders a. Organized sit ins on April 1943 at Little Palace Cafeteria on 14th U b. April 1944 a sit in took place at Thompsons Restaurant at 11th and Pennsylvania Ave – 2 weeks i. 56 students sat in, while representatives negotiated with the management 3. But these events did not become common knowledge within the media 4. In 1943, Core had started with sit-ins in The Jack Spratt Coffee House, in Chicago a. This was settled within a day by police officers b. This event also was viewed as regional – moment vs. movement b. Moment to Movement i. What does this mean? 1. Moments to Movements a. Irene Morgan vs. Rosa Parks i. Morgan refused to give up her seat in 1944 and was arrested ii. She went to the Supreme Court, and won iii. Morgan vs. Commonwealth of Virginia – Virginia Law (segregated seating) unconstitutional in Interstate Traffic b. Inspired Journey of Reconciliation (1947) with 16 Chicago activist (CORE) to ride busses in upper south i. Led by Bayard Rustin c. Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955 and was arrested i. She was secretary of the Montgomery NAACP, attended activist training seminars, and was in close...
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...To obtain justice does one need power, and to obtain power does one need weapons? In the Civil Rights Movement there have been many views on how to change one issue, racial inequality. From groups like the Black Panthers who advocated for the rights to bare arms for self protection, to the Freedom Riders who did not believe violent retaliation in any form. Comparing figureheads such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X show the distinct differences between the two, what may seem like a radical idea to one may not seems so to the other. The contrasting ideas of both nonviolent activists and activists who believe violence is inevitable if not necessary in the Civil Rights Movement, emphasizes the idea that nonviolence is key to one understanding...
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...Introduction The Watts Riots were caused by a roadside argument when a black man, Marquette Frye, was arrested for speeding. Frye had been drinking, and was driving with his brother, Ronald, in the car, when the two were pulled over two blocks from their home. While Marquette was being arrested, Ronald retrieved their mother from her house. When Mrs. Frye saw her son being forcibly arrested, she fought with the arresting officers, tearing one officer’s shirt. An officer then struck Marquette’s head with his nightstick, and all three of the Frye’s were arrested. By the time the Frye’s were arrested, hundreds of onlookers had been drawn to the scene. Anger and rumors spread quickly through the black community, and residents stoned cars and beat...
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