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The Audible Snap
By Santiago N. Lopez


Many of you may already know that February is Black History Month, but do you know anything about the life of Bayard Rustin, who many people call the architect of the civil rights movement?
 
A full accounting of the life and times of Bayard Rustin can be experienced through the film "Brother Outsider," (http://rustin.org) while a more abbreviated synopsis can be found in the POV section of the PBS website (http://www.pbs.org/pov/brotheroutsider).  What we learn from the PBS site is that long before Martin Luther King, Jr. became a national figure, Bayard Rustin routinely put his life on the line as a crusader for racial justice. Rustin's commitment to pacifism and his Gandhian nonviolent beliefs made him a pioneer in the 1940s, and captured King's imagination in the 1950s. In 1963, with more than 20 years of organizing experience behind him, Rustin brought his unique skills to the crowning glory of his civil rights career: his work organizing the historic March on Washington, the biggest protest America had ever witnessed. Rustin organized the 1963 March on Washington in just a few weeks and successfully brought together a quarter of a million people from all over the country to advocate for their rights (before the dawn of text messages, emails, fax machines, and computers).
 
But Rustin was also seen as a political liability. He was openly gay during the fiercely homophobic era of the 40s and 50s; as a result, the very civil rights movement he helped create frequently shunned him.
 
Soon after the 63 March, Senator Strom Thurmond railed against Rustin as a "Communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual" and produced an FBI photograph of Rustin talking to Martin Luther King while King was bathing, to imply that there was a sexual relationship between the two. Both men denied the allegation of an affair, but, despite King's support, NAACP chairman Roy Wilkins did not want Rustin to receive any public recognition for his role in planning the march.
 
Though Rustin was polite enough not to speak publicly about his homosexuality, he was personally open about it. He had an ease with himself as a gay man that paralleled his self-confidence speaking to all audiences, white and black. Then, in 1953, when Rustin was 40, he was arrested as a "suspected sexual pervert" in a highly publicized case in California.  A lesser man might have been silenced, but not Rustin. He went on and became a fierce advocate for Israel, labor unions, nuclear disarmament, and against the war in Vietnam.  In the early 1970's Rustin served as the first Black trustee at the University of Notre Dame.
 
An obituary that appeared in the August 25, 1987 edition of the New York Times reported, "Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: 'The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.'"
 

"When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him."

...Bayard Rustin said with an audible snap!

To watch a segment about Bayard Rustin from the documentary "Out of the Past" - 400 Years of Lesbian and Gay History in America go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO5EaN2phd4

 

 

 

Lake Michigan College Gay Pride Week - February 8-12

 

 

Thursday, February 11

Gender Switch Day: support transgender persons by bending your gender; see if you can "be" the other gender for a day

 

 

Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra - AroundTown Series