Having sex outside of marriage was not supposed to happen, and in some places it was illegal …[and] I am sure that straight people who were — caught having sex in cars were told to go home. In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that Powell's colleagues had unseated him unconstitutionally. (1988), Bayard & Me (2017) and Democracy Now! The tall man with the shock of white in his Afro introduced himself as Bayard Rustin. Thought by many to be the high point of the Civil Rights movement, the March on Washington served as the platform for Dr. Kings historic “I Have a Dream” speech and helped secure pending civil rights legislation.In 1964 Bayard Rustin helped found the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), named for his mentor. We were on the same corner waiting for the light to change.

That is something he carried with him throughout his life.”Rustin’s memory and legacy are being revived now through renewed interest in his contributions.
All rights reserved. Naegle says Rustin was calmer in his final years, wandering around New York City with his walking stick as a kind of elder statesman, before he died at the age of 75. "They were never at war," Naegle says of Rustin and Powell's relationship.

Along the way, they were beaten, arrested and fined.

But it was the early 1980s, when marriage wasn't an option — and adoption was. He had a wonderful shock of white hair, I guess he was of my parent’s generation, but we looked at each other and lightning struck. By the time he graduated high school in the late '60s, at the height of the Vietnam War, he decided he wasn't going into the military.

Did that mean he'd ever considered living a celibate life? "Bayard Rustin and Dr. Eugene Reed at Freedom House.The last week of June of this year saw great gains and losses for the civil rights of gay, straight, black, and white Americans, as the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of both the Defense of Marriage Act but also of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rustin, he says, believed Powell "was being singled out because he was black. The Institute has 200 local affiliates involved in voter registration drives and programs designed to strengthen relations between the black community and the labor movement.A longtime supporter of workers’ rights, Mr. Rustin participated in many strikes and was a staunch ally to organized labor. It’s the 30th anniversary of Bayard Rustin’s death. Naegle eventually obtained his FBI file under the Freedom of Information Act, which was "just about 10 pages, compared to Bayard's, which was about 10,000.")

He also served on numerous boards and committees, and was the recipient of more than a dozen honorary doctorates.Copyright 2008. In January 1969, "I sent my draft letter back saying, 'Thank you very much, but no thanks,'" Naegle recalls, chuckling. Now, in all fairness to him, at the time the Pasadena incident happened, straight people were having sex in cars! While he never received his B.A., Rustin attended Wilberforce University, Cheyney State College, and the City College of New York. I guess my commitment would be to sort of continue promoting his legacy and his values and to live as an integrated person myself.Beyond being Bayard Rustin's partner for the last decade of Rustin's life, Naegle has served as Rustin's executor and archivist, and he is the Executive Director of the Bayard Rustin Fund, which promotes Rustin's legacy and values. His work linking sexual, racial, and economic rights was not only forward-thinking in 1963, but in 2013. He was active in Randolph’s March on Washington Movement, and became the first field secretary of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He says he first learned who Rustin was around then, as his name was in the papers and he was on the cover of The March on Washington was one of the seminal events that inspired Naegle's increasing interest in the nonviolent movement, a passion he'd share with his future partner. (2001). It's fine to go out and say, 'Hey, we want peace.' Rustin has even been recognized by President Obama, who will posthumously award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom later this year for his tremendous service.“Actually it is a sign of how far society has evolved in the decades since Rustin operated as an openly black, gay male leader during the Civil Rights Movement,” Naegle said.
You need to give your opposition a way to get out of the situation, to lose, with dignity, or to win. Black and 37 years Naegle's senior, Rustin was — to a well-informed circle of activists, historians, and politicos — one of the giants of the 20th-century political organizing.