In an effort to discredit the march, segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond took to the Senate floor, where he derided Rustin for being a communist, a draft dodger and a homosexual. "What Rustin took away from Randolph, especially, is the recognition that economic issues and racial justice issues are completely intertwined," says his biographer, John D'Emilio. Regardless of the fact that Powell had concocted the charge for his own malicious reasons, King, in one of his weaker moments, called off the march and put distance between himself and Rustin, who reluctantly resigned from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was led by King. As he once said, so simply and clear, “I want no human being to die” (as quoted in the documentary film, Rustin experienced one of the lowest points in his career in 1960, and the author of this crisis wasn’t J. Edgar Hoover; it was another black leader.

Along with King, Rustin was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.He had two strong mentors. Though he soon quit the party after it ordered him to cease protesting racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces, he was already on the radar of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.Disappointed when the 1941 March on Washington was called off, Rustin joined the pacifist Once released, Rustin embarked on CORE’s 1947 Journey of Reconciliation, an early version of the Freedom Rides, to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in As part of his deepening commitment to nonviolent protest, Rustin traveled to India in 1948 to attend a world pacifist conference. Rustin and CORE executive secretary George Houser recruited a team of fourteen men, divided equally by race, to ride in pairs through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Fortunately for us, Rustin put the movement ahead of this vicious personal slight.In front of 170 W 130 St., March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, Deputy Director, and Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of Administrative Committee (left to right). Would everything he had been working toward pan out? (Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division)The idea for the 1963 march again came from A. Philip Randolph, who wondered if younger activists were giving short shrift to economic issues as they pushed for desegregation in the South.
"For me and for a lot of us who are black, and gay and lesbian, bi, trans, who see ourselves as social justice advocates as well, to have this person — such an amazing role model," she says.Carter says there was just no one like him, and she is delighted such a key individual in the civil rights movement is now being recognized with the nation's highest honor. At the same time, he expanded his focus on international causes, including offering support to Israel, promoting free elections in Central America and Africa and aiding refugees as vice chairman of the International Rescue Committee.During the 1980s, Rustin also opened up publicly about the sexuality he had “sublimated” since the 1950s. In January 1953, Rustin, after delivering a speech in Pasadena, Calif., was arrested on “lewd conduct” and “vagrancy” charges, allegedly for a sexual act involving two white men in an automobile. "He saw this as another challenge, another barrier that had to be broken down — a larger struggle for human rights and for individual freedoms," Neagle says. “This march is of such importance that we must not put a person of his liabilities at the head,” Wilkins said of Rustin, according to D’Emilio. He had predicted a crowd of 100,000 marchers, and with only four and a half hours to go before the meet-up, he had his doubts. A.J.
Carter is on the leadership council the National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBT civil rights group. Imagine being one, scrambling over last-minute details, reading the now famous In the section “What We Demand,” Rustin and his team were concrete in laying out the march’s 10 The march itself, of course, turned out to be a tremendous success, including those glorious moments when the official estimate of 200,000 was announced (actually, there was as many as 300,000, says Afterward, the leaders of the Big Six met with President Kennedy at the White House. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York, angry that Rustin and King were planning a march outside the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, warned King that if he did not drop Rustin, Powell would tell the press King and Rustin were gay lovers. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia, was a law student in 1963 and a volunteer for the march.

He also alienated antiwar activists when he failed to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and cautioned Dr. King against speaking out in his famous speech attacking the war delivered at Riverside Church. You don't push yourself forward," D'Emilio says.

"In 1953, Rustin's homosexuality became a public problem after he was found having sex in a parked car with two men. Enrolling at City College, he devoted himself to singing, performing with the Josh White Quartet and in the musical John Henry with Paul Robeson. "Rustin grew up in West Chester, Pa. But Rustin’s past again came into play when Roy Wilkins of the NAACP refused to allow Rustin to be the front man. "Activist Mandy Carter says Rustin was a visionary, understanding the parallels in the civil rights struggle and the gay rights movement. This was the first of the Freedom Rides to test the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel as unconstitutional. "The great achievement of the March on Washington is that Rustin had to work from the ground up," Norton says. Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights leader, was kept in the shadows by the Civil Rights movement establishment, but organized the March on Washington. "It doesn't matter if you don't get the credit for it.