Bayard Rustin

Last month, multiple organizations in Philadelphia honored Bayard Rustin’s crucial but overlooked contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Read about the outcomes of this two-day event, where we gathered at the University of Pennsylvania to explore the reasons given for Rustin’s legacy being diminished, how these struggles fueled the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and how social justice advocates are and can continue to apply the lessons learned from Rustin’s story.

Multiple organizations in Philadelphia will join forces to organize a powerful two-day program honoring Bayard Rustin’s crucial but often overlooked contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s advisor and an openly gay Black man, Rustin faced significant erasure due to homophobia and political suspicion.

The overlooked civil rights activist, educator, and advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, often called the architect of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, is finally getting his due, thanks to the new film directed by George C. Wolfe titled "Rustin."

In 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Bayard Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. The Presidential statement to the press read:

“Bayard Rustin was an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all... and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. An openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.”