Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Keep Giving Rustin His Due

In spite of the looming threat of Hurricane Irene bearing down on the mid-Atlantic, there are plenty of people still planning to descend upon Washington this weekend for the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall.  Of course the weekend also marks the 48th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, and I was glad to see that the Washington Post decided to write an article about the actual organizer of the March, Bayard Rustin.  And when I finished the article, I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that Rustin was an openly gay black man following his convictions both on racial equality and the right simply to be himself over 50 years ago.  I agree with the assessment made in the article that we don't really know the name of Rustin, because he had the nerve to be a gay man not crippled by shame.  I wish I had half of the amount of courage that Rustin displayed throughout his life.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As gay equality becomes more prevalent, hopefully all people can celebrate the man who made no apologies.

I'm just sayin'...

Anonymous said...

Yes, Rustin's courage was astounding. Wasn't there something about child molestation, though? But I'm wondering if this was real, or fabricated by bigots (even black bigots)in an effort to smear him (?).

hscfree said...

Anon #2: Rustin was arrested for hooking up with a guy in the back seat of a car back in the 50s, something Strom Thurmond introduced into the Congressional Record as a way to discredit both Rustin and the March on Washington. I've never heard of a child molestation charge against him, and considering the tactics of the FBI at that point, if that were the case, we definitely would have heard about that. And Rustin definitely ruffled the feathers of all those religious black folks who led the CRM, and tried to use his orientation to diminish his influence on MLK.

Anonymous said...

He was a communist.

hscfree said...

Anon 3: I chuckled when I read your single sentence comment, dismissiveness fully in tact. There are many things that can be said of many people folks call heroes. Rustin's contributions to this country simply cannot be reduced down to his short time with the Communist Party. If I followed your example, then I could dismiss Thomas Jefferson as a slave holding racist, but I don't do that. I could dismiss MLK as an adulterer, but I don't do that. Might I suggest you consider whomever you admire, and read his/her biography or autobiography, and let me know if your heroes can be reduced to a singular characteristic, specifically a negative one, and feel that everything else that he/she had done should be dismissed out of hat.