Sir Parnell 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 true to a social agenda that had benefited all groups who were oppressed at the time that the civil rights movement had grown to be politically narrow2.

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1. Freedman, Lawrence. Strategy: A History. Oxford University Press 2013 p. 356 2. Anderson, Jervis. Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen. Harper Collins 1997 p. 17 Other historians have stated that the fact that Rustin was gay at a time that homosexuality was frowned upon had cost him in the long run to prove to others that he was indeed a leader who should have played a bigger role in the civil rights movement. As a gay man, Rustin was the target of American leaders such as Strom Thurmond, who had his entire arrest file put into the Congressional Record, despite the fact that his attempt to blackmail Rustin had backfired significantly. At the same time, he was also a target within the African-American movement with leaders of the time such as Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. who had felt that being his political power was in peril to the point where Powell had threatened to bring up his 1953 arrest on sexual charges in order to force Dr. King to remove Rustin from his staff3.
Rustin was also the target of J. Edgar Hoover during the late 1950s and early 1960s due to the fact that he was formerly tied to the Communist movement. Hoover had requested Attorney General Robert Kennedy to authorize electronic surveillance on him, in which Kennedy authorized and in which Hoover had given the wiretaps to Rustin’s enemies in order for them to cause Rustin’s reputation to take a significant hit4. As Devon Carabado and Donald Wiese argued that “perhaps no other figure contributed so much to the civil rights movement yet been so penalized by it” 5. Although Rustin struggles with the political and spiritual consequences of his homosexuality, his biographer John D’Emilio states that Rustin had remained “unusually open” about it.
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3. Levine, Daniel. Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. Rutgers University Press 1999 p.17 4. US Department of Justice. FBI Files. May 1969, Accessed November 4, 2014 5. Carabado, Devon and Wiese, Donald. Time on Two Crosses: Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin HarperCollins. 2003

The first contribution that Bayard Rustin had created as an activist is the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 in which he, as a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation as well as a member of the American Friends Service Committee along with FOR member George Houser and 14 other members from CORE also took part in this non-violent action to allow for interstate transportation in light of the Irene Morgan decision that the US Supreme Court had handed down one year earlier that allowed for desegregation of interstate travel, but the South did not recognize that decision, so the protesters were arrested and sentenced to time on a chain gang all over the South, including Rustin for 30 days in North Carolina6..
There was some opposition to this non-violent action, most specifically from Walter White, who was concerned that this type of non-violent action would not work out in the way that Rustin and Houser had wanted this march to be, but despite all of the obstacles, White was able to put into service the legal support of attorneys who were connected to the NAACP in the South. There was also another person who was opposed to the Journey of Reconciliation and this person is future US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who stated that the “disobedience movement on the part of Negroes and their white allies, if employed in the South, would result in wholesale slaughter with no good achieved”7. The Journey of Reconciliation was a 2 week non-violent action that had resulted in 12 people being arrested, with Rustin among them and most had been sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang with the exception of Igor Rodarenko, who received 90 days on the chain gang. The intention of these members of the Journey of Reconciliation was to not only put the Morgan decision to the test, but another intention of doing this non-violent action was to gauge the reaction of those who were opposed to the march itself, which there were opposition from all sides which resulted in the members not completing the Journey.

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6. Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia. 328 US 373. Ruling 1946 7. Rustin, Bayard. I Must Resist: Life in Letters. City Lights Books, 2012 p. 96

Another contribution that Rustin had made to the Civil Rights Movement that historians have not heard of or given credit to him during the Civil Rights movement was the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom that was organized by Rustin and A. Philip Randolph on May 17, 1957 that was supported by the president of the NAACP, Roy Wilkins as a way to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision that ended segregation in the public schools. Also seen at this event was the “Give Us The Ballot” Speech given by Dr. King that called for voting rights for African-Americans as well as a message from Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, who would soon turn against Rustin months after, asking him not to embarrass the President of the United States at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, so the non-violent march was changed to a prayer event8
At this time, this was Rustin’s first event being in the backstage role since his arrest in Pasadena in 1953 on sodomy charges that led to his firing from the Fellowship of Reconciliation and prior to his involvement in the War Resisters League as well as bringing attention to his sexuality, in which homosexuality was against the law during the 1950s until its revocation in 2003. During his time with the War Resisters League, Rustin had also advised Dr. King in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 which started when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus in 1955 that led to a US Supreme Court case Browder v. Gayle in 1956 that made the segregation of buses unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution9. The event itself took place at the Lincoln Memorial where people such as Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, Roy Wilkins, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Sr, and Martin Luther King, Jr had spoken at this event. This event helped King become the undisputed African-American civil rights leader as well as setting a standard to put pressure on the Eisenhower administration to push a voting rights act through Congress as well as a more complex Civil Rights act.

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8. Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom (1957) Accessed November 13, 2014 9. Browder v. Gayle. 142 F. Supp 707
In the following year, Rustin and Dr. King had begun preparations to create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. There were some concerns from African-American leaders that Rustin’s sexuality and his ties to the Communists would undermine the goals of the Civil Rights Movement in which Adam Clayton Powell had a role in as a member of the SCLC’s board of directors that forced Rustin to resign from the SCLC in 1960 after Powell had threatened to bring up Rustin’s Pasadena arrest in Congress and also because Powell was concerned that his power in the Black community would be diminished by Rustin
Prior to the March on Washington, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond painted Rustin as a “draft dodger, a Communist, and a homosexual” and having his 1953 arrest entered into the public record in order to tarnish Rustin’s reputation and as proof of his claim, produced an FBI photo of him and Martin Luther King in the tub in King’s home, bolstering his claim that there was a homosexual relationship between the two men10. Rustin’s big contribution to the March was the fact that he had organized the bus captains, organized police officers to serve as marshals to protect the marchers as well scheduling the speakers who were to speak at the National Mall in which he assisted by future Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, despite the opposition leaders, specifically NAACP Chair Roy Wilkins not wanting to give Rustin credit for organizing the march because of his homosexuality.
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After the March on Washington, Rustin had turned his focus to the 1968 New York City School Boycott that resulted in Jewish teachers being forced out of their jobs and also adding to the fact that despite the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that forced the desegregation of public facilities, the schools in New York City was still segregated racially11. After the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the subsequent 1965 Voting Rights Act, Rustin had begun to hopefully create an alliance of sorts between the Civil Rights movement and the Democratic Party and those of the working class. With one of his proteges, Tom Kahn, Rustin wrote an article called “From Protest to Politics” in which he argues that the desegregation of public places such as hotels, schools, and libraries was essential to the broadening of the Civil Rights Movement12. He further argues that the needs of the African-American community call for a shift in political strategy whereby the blacks would have to ally with white unions in order to have an economic agenda, which he further states that it is time to move on from protest to politics12. 10. Congressional Record. 88th United States Congress 11. Podair, Jerald. Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer. Rowman & Littlefield 2009 p. 96 12. Rustin, Bayard. From Protest to Politics. Commentary Magazine, February 1965

Three years after the March on Washington, Rustin had drafted the Freedom Budget, which called for in all cases an end to the poverty regarding African-Americans. This budget had called for the people to go beyond the civil rights movement and linking racial justice with economic justice for all people in the United States. It further goes into calling for the masses of the 99% in a crusade that is democratic and moral that encompasses the civil rights movement, the labor rights movement, students, religious communities, and elders13.
During the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, which begun after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr on April 4, Rustin opposed the campaign due to his concerns about civil disobedience in which he argued that the plans were vague and had lacked any direction as well as it did not address the key issues of the day, specifically the income for African-Americans, but Rustin’s main argument is that he had concerns about disruptive tactics in the campaign that was subsequently
During the 1970s, Rustin once more shifted his focus to the labor movement in which he saw this movement as the model for empowering the African-American community and having economic justice for all Americans in which he made significant contributions to both the political portion of the labor movement as well as the economic portion of the labor movement. In 1972, Rustin, with the support of the AFL-CIO labor union, founded and became the director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, in which he had spearheaded the alliance between the AFL-CIO’s civil rights record and for economic justice, which gave him a major arena to work with. On the political side, Rustin became a member of the Social Democrats, USA in which he was a co-chairman in which he had criticized President Nixon’s ending of the War on Poverty in which Rustin wanted the program to continue supporting the needy, most specifically the African-American community14.

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13. Rustin, Bayard. Freedom Budget. A. Philip Randolph Institute. Accessed December 24, 2014 14. Podair, Jerald. Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer . Rowman and Littlefield 2008 p. 96

During this time, Rustin had begun working for Freedom House as an election monitor as well as a human rights monitor in which had allowed him to be an opponent of Marxism as well as visiting other nations such as Zimbabwe, Haiti, Barbados, and Lebanon to oversee the elections that wouldn’t be considered to be fair by American standards. As for his work on human violations for Freedom House, he was able to see firsthand experiences in places such as Chile during the military dictatorship of Pinochet during the 1970s and was able to work with foreign labor and civil rights leaders during his tenure to address the political climates in each nation.
During the last years of his life, Rustin once more had shifted his focus toward Gay Rights, in which he had seen as an extension of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s in which he became active in the gay community to amend the New York City law that banned homosexuality and at the same time, battled with politicians who had supported the ban in the same way that politicians from the Civil Rights movement did. Furthermore, Rustin felt that the Civil Rights for the LGBT had brought about the fulfillment for equality for all Americans in which he stated that gays needed to be protected legally as members of an oppressed group.
By identifying himself as a member of the gay community, Rustin devoted the rest of his life to promoting Civil Rights for gays in which he had testified in front of committees, received support from members of the New York City Council as well as speaking at rallies for the cause in support of a gay rights bill in which became the model for gay right bills across the country.
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In the last few years of his life, Rustin had devoted himself politically and personally While there was no domestic laws in place in New York, he had adopted Walter Naegle as his son so that when Rustin died, Naegle was able to inherit all of Rustin’s possessions as well as staying in the apartment that they had shared. While testifying at a congressional hearing, Rustin had received word that A. Philip Randolph had died, he openly wept for him because he was Rustin’s biggest supporter when Rustin was arrested for sexual crimes back in 1953 as well as other offenses13. 15. Podair, Jerald. Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer. Rowman and Littlefield 2008 p. 108
Rustin was still involved with the day to day operations of the Randolph Institute, now focusing on African Americans to bring out the vote for African-Americans that were eligible to vote and securing the elections for African-American politicians through campaigning and fundraising, he was also the driving force behind the connection of African-Americans and organized leaders that would secure the votes and support of the Democratic Party. Rustin was able to understand that his dreams about having integration as well as socialism will not happen during his lifetime as well as the change of the political scene did not favor him and declared to himself that time and the history that Rustin made will be judged by those who want to know more about him as well as being able to bring his accomplishments to the forefront.
When he died on March 24, 1987 from a burst appendix, Bayard Rustin had left behind a legacy that was somewhat obscured from our history because of the fact that he was gay at a time where homosexuality was frowned upon as well as the fact that it was against the law at the time. He was also obscured from our history because of the discomfort of the public due to his sexual orientation. According to Daniel Richman, who served as Thurgood Marshall’s law clerk during his years on the US Supreme Court, it was Rustin’s friendship with Marshall that led to his dissent in the soon to be overturned Supreme Court case Bowers v. Hardwick that overturned sodomy laws 17. Most historians such as John D’Emilio have stated that his legacy, due to the influence that he had on people that he had helped along the way such as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Julian Bond, and countless others had opened up the floodgates to revive his legacy as well as give him the credit as being a Civil Rights icon. When he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal for Freedom in 2013 after much campaigning by members of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the citation that came with it stated that “Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights and equality. As an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted non-violent resistance, participated in the first freedom rides during the Journey of Reconciliation, organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as well as fighting for equality domestically and internationally. As a gay man, Mr. Rustin stood at the center of many of the marginalized groups for Civil Rights.
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16. Bowers vs. Hardwick. 478 US 186 (1986), Accessed November 20, 2014. 17. Presidential Medal of Freedom Press Release. August 8, 2013, Accessed December 18, 2014
In conclusion, Bayard Rustin had dreamed of an integrated nation where whites were able to get along with minorities and minorities were able to get along with whites. He was able to integrate both the homosexual and the heterosexuals together as well as being able to convince everyone that America, most specifically the United States should be and will be equal. In order to see his dream fulfilled, Rustin had to create a program whereby he had to understand the agenda of equality between civil rights, labor, socialism, democracy and peace and to be able to put it all together for people who were against these ideas to understand his position on many social issues. He fought to give African-Americans the right to have the same rights to equality as well as having the rights to the other minorities because their struggles were similar to African-Americans, which led Rustin to declare that he will help those the people in trouble because he had believed that order for the United States to be equal, the social, political, racial and economic obstacles needed to be tackled in order for the nation to prosper going forward.
His program had to be concrete and being that he understood the economic situation with African-Americans; he was able to focus more on economic justice after the Civil Rights movement in which Rustin was able to argue in his essay “From Protest to Politics” that the racial tensions in America had been strung from the rivalries in social class as well as the hatred for one another. He was also aware that in order to provide for the well-being would allow all Americans to see each other as individuals and equals as well as not by race. It is for this reason that Bayard Rustin had begun to trust democracy a lot more than he used to. He was able to understand the confidence of the average man and woman to make decisions that would best serve their interests and their judgments.
In his relationship with democracy, Rustin was able to tie that to the non-violence tactics that he had learned from Gandhi into his strategy to make America equal as an expression of the popular will of the people. He was able to envision for the people that the role that they’re going to have for civil disobedience in which society plays a role in giving the individual equal material needs in order to succeed under the law. Rustin sacrificed his life to make the United States better than how he found it, and because of this, he is considered to be, according to historians such as John D’Emilio as a lost prophet because of his predictions that would later become true.

Without the understanding of nonviolence and passing it on to Martin Luther King, Jr nor the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as well as the intervention of Bayard Rustin, the South would still be under Jim Crow today and although he did not write the famous speech “I Have A Dream” Speech, he was more than responsible for the inspiration behind it. Rustin was one of the people responsible for the creation of the most political and social transformation in US History with the emergence of the African-American community as a base as well as helping African-Americans get elected to political offices and we have Rustin to thank for that. Without the election of African-American politicians in the past, there wouldn’t be anyone elected to elective office. Although he did have some struggles with the culture that he was born into, the way he was raised had brought him into conflict with the ideals of the American way of life where Rustin had dreamt of a nation that was judged on the merits and the individuals but at the same time was able to understand that in order to prosper, Americans needed to share the wealth for the betterment of the community that they live in and are a part of. As a socialist, one of his weaknesses was the paradoxes that were seen in a nation where the minority wants to have freedom and equality, which led to his program of equality and freedom to fail in public opinion.

Rustin’s America was formed on the basis of those who came before him such as DuBois, Lincoln, Debs, and Randolph. The nation that he came up with in his mind was a nation that was created equally amongst all Americans, but to have economic security for all. He also wanted his nation to be free from the persecution of sexuality amongst men and women of all races while being judged on their qualities as opposed to their particular preferences. Although he did not live long enough for his dream to be realized, Rustin’s work is in progress. Today, the United States still struggles with poverty and wealth at many levels where African-Americans are struggling to reach the same level as those before them as well as having an economic disadvantage with whites. Minorities are still having problems acclimating themselves to the United States while being exposed racially and economically in order for those who come after them, mainly their children and grandchildren down the line would have to fight for their rights and to overcome all obstacles that were faced before them. The United States in my opinion is still a militarized society, but it is better than what it was like during the Civil Rights movement of the early 20th century. Rustin was able to mobilize America to do the right thing morally to make the United States a place where we have rights for every citizen and we have the materials that all Americans need to succeed in life. This is also why John D’Emilio thinks that Bayard Rustin was considered to be a “Lost Prophet”
Historiography
1. Lost Prophet: Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio a. The arguments that I have in regards to this book was that it D’Emilio has a lot of information on Rustin, but it has a lot of quotations from associates and friends of his. He also struggled with the political developments that Rustin was a part of while deciding to skip those who were accused of selling him out before and after the March on Washington. Although he mentions that he worked for Freedom House towards the tail end of his life, it was the fact that he does not mention the fact that he was chair of not only the Randolph Institute, but also was chairman of Social Democrats, USA as well as his other projects. 2. Down The Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin by C. Vann Woodward a. The arguments that I have in this book is that although all of the essays are written by Bayard Rustin, it is all accurate and speaks to what Rustin was thinking and speaking about in the source. It gave me an insight into some of his other projects that he did besides the March on Washington and also an understanding of the subject. The downside is that the information does not have all of his speeches up until his death, being that this book was published in 1971, but is a good source for everything prior to the 1980s. 3. American Dreamer: Bayard Rustin. Jerald Podair a. The author does a good job of painting a picture of Bayard Rustin, in which he covered his early years to the pacifist movement to the Civil Rights movement as well as his association with different organizations as well as for those who worked with him. He does make clear that Rustin was as responsible for the freedom and equality of African-Americans as well as a Civil Rights leader.

Sources 1. Freedman, Lawrence. Strategy: A History. Oxford University Press 2013 p. 356 2. Levine, Daniel. Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. Rutgers University Press 1999 p.17 3. Anderson, Jervis. Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen. Harper Collins 1997 p. 17 4. US Department of Justice. FBI Files. May 1969, Accessed November 4, 2014 5. Carabado, Devon and Wiese, Donald. Time on Two Crosses: Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin HarperCollins. 2003 6. Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia. 328 US 373. Ruling 1946 7. Rustin, Bayard. I Must Resist: Life in Letters. City Lights Books, 2012 p. 96 8. D’Emilio, John. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin p. 197 9. Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom (1957) Accessed November 13, 2014 10. Browder v. Gayle. 142 F. Supp 707 11. Rustin, Bayard. From Protest to Politics. Commentary Magazine, February 1965 12. Rustin, Bayard. Freedom Budget. A. Philip Randolph Institute. Accessed December 24, 2014 13. Podair, Jerald. Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer . Rowman and Littlefield 2008 p. 96 14. Podair p. 108 15. Bowers vs. Hardwick. 478 US 186 (1986), Accessed November 20, 2014 16. Presidential Medal of Freedom Press Release. August 8, 2013, Accessed December 18, 2014