Profile:Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin-Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested for homosexual behavior early in his life. Because homosexuality was criminalized through the 1960s and stigmatized through the 1970s, Rustin's sexuality was criticized by some fellow pacifists and civil-rights leaders. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Rustin was attacked as a "pervert" or "immoral influence" by political opponents, both segregationists and Black power militants. To avoid such attacks, Rustin served only rarely as a public spokesperson. He usually acted as an influential adviser to civil-rights leaders. In the 1970s, he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes.

He recognized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership, and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to strengthen King's leadership; Rustin promoted the philosophy of nonviolence and the practices of nonviolent resistance, which he had observed while working with Gandhi's movement in India. Rustin became a leading strategist of the civil rights movement from 1955–1968. He was the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was headed by A. Philip Randolph, the leading African-American labor-union president and socialist. Rustin also influenced young activists, such as Tom Kahn and Stokely Carmichael, in organizations like the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).