Bayard Rustin archive preserves his legacy as queer civil rights leader

NEW YORK (AP) – This fall, a digital archive will open access to one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most overlooked leaders: Bayard Rustin. Built by the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, the project will collect photos, speeches, videos, telegrams, and personal accounts that reflect his life’s work.

For years, Rustin’s name sat on the margins of history books. He helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott, mentored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and was the lead architect of the 1963 March on Washington. But his role in shaping the Civil Rights Movement has often been buried due to his identity as a gay Black man and former member of the Young Communist League.

“There’s this hole in our history,” said Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber, the center’s founder and chief activist. “And there are great resources about Bayard, but they’re all spread out, and none of it has been collected and put together in the way that he deserves, and more importantly, the way the world deserves to see him.”

Bayard Rustin archive shows the power behind the podium

Rustin was never the face of the movement, but he was often the force behind its victories. He planned logistics, built coalitions, and led with strategy. Rare footage uncovered by Associated Press archivists shows him speaking at a 1964 New York rally in support of voting rights marchers who had been attacked in Selma, Alabama. In another clip from 1967, he speaks during a New York teachers’ strike.

“We are here to tell President Johnson that the Black people, the trade union movement, white people of goodwill and the church people — Negroes first — put him where he is,” Rustin said at the 1964 rally. “We will stay in these damn streets until every Negro in the country can vote.”

Rustin was arrested 23 times, including a 1953 conviction in California under charges often used to criminalize LGBTQ+ people. He served 50 days in jail and was beaten by police. In 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a posthumous pardon, acknowledging the injustice Rustin endured.

Mentorship, not martyrdom

Rustin helped guide Dr. King’s early embrace of nonviolence. He organized with precision, often building massive mobilizations in a matter of weeks. His work behind the scenes helped fuel many of the movement’s most defining moments.

David J. Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, pointed to Rustin’s continuing influence. “Being an architect of not just that moment but of the movement, has enabled so many of us to continue to do things that are a direct result of his teaching and sacrifice,” Johns said.

Walter Naegle, Bayard Rustin’s partner, is helping curate the archive. For him, access to this history is about visibility and survival. “There wasn’t very much of an LGBTQ+ movement until the early 50s,” Naegle said.

“The African American struggle was a blueprint for what they needed to do and how they needed to organize. And so to have access to all of the Civil Rights history, and especially to Bayard’s work — because he was really the preeminent organizer — I think it’s very important for the current movements to have the ability to go back and look at that material,” he added.

From Harlem to history

Rustin grew up in a household rooted in activism. His grandmother, a member of the NAACP, raised him in a space where Black leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson were present. He was expelled from Wilberforce University in 1936 for organizing a strike, studied at Cheyney University and City College of New York, and became involved in organizing during the Harlem Renaissance.

Still, his sexuality made him a target. In 1960, New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. threatened to spread false rumors about Rustin and King. As a result, Rustin stepped back from visible leadership for several years.

But in 1963, he returned to lead the March on Washington, a turning point in U.S. history that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Restoring what was taken

Filmmaker Julian Breece, who co-wrote the 2023 Netflix biopic Rustin, said learning about Bayard gave him a model of possibility. Growing up Black and gay in the 1990s, Breece said it was difficult to imagine a path forward. That changed when he saw Rustin standing beside Dr. King.

“Seeing a picture of Rustin with King, who is the opposite of all those things, it let me know there was a degree to which I was being lied to and that there was more for me potentially, if Bayard Rustin could have that kind of impact,” Breece said. “I wanted Black gay men to have a hero they could look up to,” he said.

Related Stories:

• Award winning actor Colman Domingo to star as Bayard Rustin in “Rustin”
• Meet 5 Black Leaders Who Revolutionized the Labor Movement
• Black Queer Tulsa breaks down barriers in conservative Oklahoma