Significant Others - Bayard Rustin

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

The architect of the March on Washington and co-author of Dr. King’s memoir was a mentor to the great civil rights martyr. But he was nearly hidden from history—largely by choice.Starring: J. Holtham as Bayard Rustin and Anthony Obi as Martin Luther King, Jr. Also featuring: Miles Grose, Matt Gourley, and Jesse Thorn. Source List:The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Bayard Rustin, To Bayard Rustin, Glenn E. Smiley, From Bayard Rustin, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Address at NAACP Mass Rally for Civil RightsFacing History & Ourselves, Brother Outsider: Remembering Gay Civil Rights Leader Bayard RustinLambda Legal, 67 Years Later, Bayard Rustin’s California Arrest and Jail Time Have Been PardonedJewish News Syndicate, Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)Bill of Rights Institute, Bayard Rustin, Nonviolence vs. Jim Crow, 1942PBS.org., Who Designed the March on Washington?The Weekly Challenger, The FBI Plot to Bring Down the Gay Man Behind the March on WashingtonMaking Gay History, Bayard RustinWashington Blade, Looking Back: 50 Years of the BladeThe Washington Post, Bayard Rustin, Organizer of the March on Washington, Was Crucial to the Movement, In ‘I Must Resist,’ Bayard Rustin Lived a Life with No Apologies Montgomery Advertiser, 21, 22, 23, & 24 February 1956Cross Country Solidarity, The Montgomery Bus Boycott: The Full StoryLA Times, Glenn Smiley; Advised King on NonviolenceThe Guardian, When Martin Luther King Gave Up His GunsWhy a Gay, Black Civil Rights Hero Opposed Affirmative ActionMalcolm X and Bayard Rustin Debate on WBAICivilRights.org, Bayard Rustin and the Presidential Medal of Freedom: A Perfect FitYale Law School, Bayard Rustin CentennialResearchgate.net, Arrest Record for Bayard RustinAdam Clayton Powell Jr.Beacon Broadside, Roy Wilkins’s Reluctant Tribute to W.E.B. Du BoisLegal Defense Fund, Brown v. Board of EducationGreensboro.com, Thurmond, FBI Had Close Ties, Records ShowThe New York Times, Negro Rally Aide Rebuts SenatorI Must Resist, Bayard Rustin’s Life In Letters, Ed. Michael Long, City Lights Books, ©2012Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D’Emilio, Free Press/Simon & Schuster, ©2003ALABAMA V. KING, By Dan Abrams and Fred Grey with David Fisher, Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd., ©2022 Martin Luther King, Jr., Homosexuality, and the Early Gay Rights Movement By Michael Long, First published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, a division of St. Martin’s Press, ©2012Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J Garrow, ©1986, Edition published 2015 by Open Road Media 

Welcome to Significant Others, a podcast that takes a look at the less familiar side of history. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien, and in this episode, we'll be hearing the story of a collaboration that changed the course of history, but a collaborator that for many years remained largely hidden from it. largely hidden from it. On a Wednesday morning in February 1956, dozens of citizens of Montgomery, Alabama awoke, put on their best clothes, and made their way to the courthouse to offer themselves up for arrest. They were processed, fingerprinted, and released on $300 bail each, while friends and family stood outside and applauded. The following evening, a little-known 27-year-old minister gave a speech that made it to a front-page article in the New York Times. The next morning, thousands walked together from the courthouse to the church, singing a song of solidarity. These events would galvanize a movement, rouse a nation, and anoint a savior.

But the speech, the song, and the strategy were all authored by a man who, for many years, most folks had never heard of. A man who had already spent decades fighting for justice and equality. A man who, even as he breathed life into the nascent civil rights movement, was seen as a threat by many within it. This time on Significant Others, meet Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin is far from obscure. There's a documentary about him, a movie on Netflix, and he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2013. He has already been revealed as a sort of backbone

to the civil rights movement as we know it, but his presence, historically speaking, is inconsistent. already been revealed as a sort of backbone to the civil rights movement as we know it. But his presence, historically speaking, is inconsistent. It's like it's siloed or something. People tend to either know exactly who he is already or have never heard of him. The reasons for this will become clearer as we go through the story, but the truth is that he suffered an intentional and sometimes painful removal from the historical record, often at his own hand. It's easy to think of Martin Luther King Jr. as the man he became. But in late 1955, he was a 26-year-old minister with a pregnant wife whose community was preparing to protest segregation laws in a place where the Klan freely roamed the streets by day. When first asked if he would lead the protest, he demurred, saying he was too

busy. But not long after that, when it came time to vote for president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association, and his name was put forward, he had a different response. Well, if you think I can render some service, I will. He knew the position was dangerous. There was no history of successful protests by Southern Black Americans at that point in time. As civil rights lawyer Fred Gray tells it in the book Alabama v. King, It was generally accepted that raising up had few benefits and getting involvement risking confrontation with white authorities who held all the power. The thousands

of black people working for white folks were not ready to put their jobs at stake. Demonstrations didn't work. Mostly they caused problems for people who already had a bundle of them. Mostly they caused problems for people who already had a bundle of them. Once Dr. King became the face of the boycott, he began getting death threats. And then, on January 30th, 1956, his home was bombed, with his wife and infant daughter inside. I asked if my wife and baby were alright. They said, we're checking on that now. Strangely enough, I accepted the word of the barman calmly.

A few nights earlier, King had had a religious experience. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership. And if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone. At that moment, I experienced the presence of the divine,

as I had never experienced him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever. Almost at once, my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything. But looking around at the faces of his community,

he knew calm was not necessarily going to be the overwhelming vibe of that moment. He needed to urge them now, when they felt most threatened, to stay peaceful. Because if large-scale violence were to erupt, he knew they would lose. The people would suffer, and the work could be snuffed out. So even as he stood in front of the charred and smoking entry to his house, he said to the 300 gathered there, and smoking entry to his house. He said to the 300 gathered there,

We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them. And let them know you love them. Avoid violence. Embrace love. That's the message we will forever associate with him.

But at that moment, it was not yet a tactic. It was more of a goal. But love is not enough. In order to create change, you need something else. You need force. But how does one create enough force to overcome the oppressor? How do we create force without calling on violence? These were the questions Dr. King had yet to answer. How to blend, according to biographer David Garrow, what King called the two irreconcilables of militancy and moderation. Everyone knew that Gandhi was doing it, but hardly anyone knew how. As King reportedly said of Gandhi at the time, I know very little about the man.

What King needed was an expert, a Black American who had been to India and studied with Gandhi's disciples, who had already spent two decades fighting peacefully for equality and justice, who was a master of nonviolent techniques. What Dr. King needed was a man he didn't yet know existed. A month after the bombing, King was in Nashville when news broke that the Montgomery police had indicted nearly 100 people for organizing the bus boycott. He knew immediately he had to go back, though he and his father fought about it.

Martin Sr. feared for his son's life and wept when he realized there was no stopping him from returning home. King went to the police station, got arrested, paid his bail, and then huddled with advisors to plan their next steps. In the room that day was a stranger, a northerner who none of them knew but who had already made himself essential to their cause. Although Rustin had only been in Montgomery for two days, he had shaped nearly everything that happened that week. It was Rustin who suggested that folks comply with the arrests, rather than allowing police to humiliate them by hunting them down and dragging them in. It was Rustin who encouraged friends and family to witness the arrests and telegraph their pride. It was Rustin who composed the song of solidarity and hope that they sang as they walked.

And it was Rustin who began to show King how to give the Montgomery bus boycott what Gandhi called satyagraha, otherwise known as soul force. Step one, get rid of the guns. King's cohort had been, in a word, rattled by the attack on his home. And there was a widespread urge to stock up on methods of self-defense. A fellow activist said so many guns had been smuggled into town by ministers and porters, the place was an arsenal. King's wife Coretta said after the house was bombed, It could have been a riot, a very bloody riot.

Even King himself took steps to arm up. After the bombings, many of the officers of my church and other trusted friends urged me to hire a bodyguard and armed watchman for my house. steps to arm up. I also went down to the sheriff's office and applied for a license to carry a gun in the car. But this was refused. In the tug of war between militancy and moderation, militancy currently had the upper hand. There were so many guns lying around that Rustin had to warn his colleague, Bill Worthy, against sitting down in the wrong place when they met in the parsonage. Bill, wait, wait. Couple of guns in that chair. You don't want to shoot yourself.

Rustin immediately began counseling King on how there is no place for weapons in a non-violent campaign. If, in the flow and the heat of battle, a leader's house is bombed and he shoots back, that is an encouragement to his followers to pick up guns. If on the other hand he has no guns around him and they all know it, they will rise to the non-violent occasion of the situation. What Rustin said made sense to King and caused him to rethink things. As King tells it in Stride Toward Freedom, his book about the bus boycott, the cognitive dissonance was almost instantaneous. I also went down to the sheriff's office and applied for a license to carry a gun in the car,

but this was refused. Meanwhile, I reconsidered. How could I serve as one of the leaders of a nonviolent movement and at the same time use weapons of violence for my personal protection. If you're looking for Bayard Rustin, that's where you'll find him. In that meanwhile, in that reconsidering. Rustin contributed to that book. We hear his influence especially in a passage like that one, but his name was nowhere to be found inside when it was first published. This was intentional.

In regards to my name being left out, this was my decision, and a very sound one. But why would he be so eager to erase himself? Reactionaries in the South have distributed several pieces of literature accusing King of being a communist and linking me, a communist agitator, with him. Rustin had been a member of the Youth Communist League as a student, but never a member of the party.

This affiliation would not have been enough to make him believe he was essentially radioactive. To understand that, we have to go back to the beginning. Bayard Rustin was born in 1912 to an unwed teenage mother in Pennsylvania. She quickly ran away, leaving him to be raised among her siblings, and for years he thought his mother was his sister. But his grandparents' idyllic marriage gave him a solid, loving home base. His grandmother, one of the first Black women in the county to be educated through high school, and who subsequently trained as a nurse, profoundly influenced him with her commitment to tolerance, respect, and service.

She towered whenever she walked into a room. She was a marvelous person. She really was. In addition to raising eight children and Bayard himself, Julia Rustin founded a child care center for black working mothers, served as a board member for a society of black nurses, led a Bible camp, housed families during the Great Migration, and was one of the first members of the local chapter of the NAACP. Ma Rustin, as Bayard's friends called her, was steeped in Pennsylvania's Quaker traditions, and it was with her that he first studied the issue of liberation. My grandmother was thoroughly convinced

that when it came to matters of the liberation of Black people, we had much more to learn from the Jewish experience than we had to learn out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This marked the birth of what he called his militancy for achievement. He was exceptional from the start, winning academic honors, essay contests, and an oratory award. He was a poet, a thespian, a gifted singer, a celebrated athlete, and a member of student government. He was well-liked and idiosyncratic. When tackled on the football field, he might pop back up quoting Browning. He was also forced to navigate the thorny maze of racism.

He was barred from the places to which most of his classmates had access, like the pool at the YMCA, or the house of his best friend, who happened to be white. And by the time he graduated high school with more honors than any of his classmates, he had already begun to resist. When the banquet came for the football team, it was held at the YMCA, in which I was not allowed to go swim. was held at the YMCA, in which I was not allowed to go swim. So my grandmother urged me in protest not to go to the banquet, and I'm so glad she did. Friends remember his refusing to move from the whites-only seats in the movie theater and being forcibly ejected from a restaurant. His first stint at college ended, reportedly, when he refused to join ROTC and tried to organize a student strike to improve the quality of the food. But that may not have been the whole story. I recognized that I was gay when I was in high school, but I was fortunate and was very successful

at hiding it because I was on the championship football team. I was on the championship track team. I won the all-state championship for tennis. I was on the championship track team. I won the all-state championship for tennis. I was so popular and boys in the school liked me so that they automatically made me the manager of the basketball team. I couldn't play basketball at all in order that I could get four letters. So at that point, it was all extremely romantic and far removed from any activity. But I knew then that my affection was far more for men than for women. But the activity didn't stay removed. I was associating with a young, rather handsome fellow.

My grandmother called me one day and she says, Bayard, I think you have to be very careful associating with... And she called his name. And I said, why, Mama? She says, because you are the type of person who can easily get into trouble. And particularly where young men are concerned, always associate with people who have as much to lose as you have. And she said, he has absolutely nothing to lose.

There's no clear documentation of why Rustin left either of the two colleges he attended, but it's not unthinkable that it could have had something to do with his sexuality. His second departure, just one year shy of graduation, left the school's president, who adored him, in tears. Rustin remembered that Dr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, a Harvard-educated, widely respected African-American educator, promised him he wouldn't put anything bad in Rustin's record when they were saying goodbye. According to Rustin's former lover, Davis Platt, it was around this time that Rustin's record when they were saying goodbye. According to Rustin's former lover, Davis Platt, it was around this time that Rustin was caught having sex on a golf course with the white son

of a prominent family. So it's quite possible this was the source of Dr. Pinckney's sadness. Shortly thereafter, Rustin was sent away from home to live with his aunt in New York City, where in the 1930s, he he said one could be gay, but one could still not publicize gayness. He found happiness in New York, singing professionally and diving further into activism. The renowned pacifist A.J. Mustie put him to work at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, sending Rustin all around the country to promote and employ nonviolent direct action. The more connected Rustin got to his calling, the more he realized he could not be closeted.

It was a natural extension of his core beliefs. One day, way back as far as 1947, I walked into a bus in the South, all prepared to do what I had always done in the South, take a seat in the rear. As I was going by the second seat to go to the rear, a white child reached out for the red necktie I was wearing and pulled it, whereupon its mother said, don't touch a n***a. Something happened. And I said to myself, if I go and sit quietly in the back of that bus now, that child who is so innocent of race relations will have seen so many blacks go in the back and

sit down quietly that it's going to end up saying they like it back there. I've never seen anybody protest against it. That's what people in the South were saying. So I said I owe it to that child. Not only to my own dignity, but I owe it to that child that it should be educated to know that Blacks do not want to sit in the back. And therefore, I should get arrested, letting all these white people in the bus know that I do not accept that. All these white people in the bus know that I do not accept that. Now, it occurred to me shortly after that,

that it was an absolute necessity for me to declare homosexuality. Because if I didn't, I was a part of the prejudice. I was aiding and abetting the prejudice that was a part of the effort to destroy me. And that, in the long run, the only way I could be a free, whole person was to face the shit. But the more determined he was to be open about his sexuality, the more trouble it became. The first time he went to prison, in 1944, was as a conscientious objector to World War II.

Immediately, he set about trying to reform the segregation rules inside the institution. He wrote memos, lobbied the warden, rallied the inmates, coordinated protests, gave speeches, pitched a class on nonviolence with himself as the teacher, which was eventually approved. class on nonviolence with himself as the teacher, which was eventually approved. The warden called him a constant troublemaker. When a fellow inmate beat him with a stick for entering the whites-only area of the prison, Rustin met the attack as only a nonviolent direct activist can. He accepted the blows and told anyone who tried to intervene to stand back. Eventually, the attacker got so freaked out he started shaking all over and had to sit down. Rustin, bloodied and suffering a broken wrist, considered it his victory. But just as Rustin was making headway with the administration, he was cited for sexual

misconduct. Men in prison having sexual contact with other men was one thing, but Rustin was clearly gay, and this seems to be where the citation got its teeth. Rustin furiously denied everything. A while later, he changed his story, admitting there was a situation, but that he was not guilty of the charges that had been made against him. that have been made against him. It's like he was trying to figure out a way to say to a society that diagnosed homosexuality as a psychiatric disease, yes, I have done these things, but no, they are not punishable. It killed the momentum of his reforms and personally left him practically undefended.

A.J. Mustie, his mentor, champion, and boss, wrote him, You have been guilty of gross misconduct, especially reprehensible in a person making the claims to leadership and in a sense of moral superiority, which you were making. Furthermore, you had deceived everybody, including your own comrades and most devoted friends. He goes on to say, You were capable of making the mistake of thinking He goes on to say, which there was no justification. It was the first sign that Rustin's whole self-commitment to justice and equality might compromise his ability to fight for justice and equality,

and he began struggling to manage it somehow. Later, Musty counseled him to, Give up what amounts to a death wish. If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off. death wish. If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off. Rustin was self-flagellating. It was my own weakness and stupidity that defeated the immediate campaign and jeopardized immeasurably the causes for which I believe I would be willing to die. Prostrate with guilt, he called himself selfish as a child and declared that he was through with animal behavior. He contemplated celibacy, flirted with heterosexuality, but could never promise to give up men completely. Thank you. two dozen times. But where going to jail to protest racial inequality or armed warfare was seen as virtuous, going to jail for what was at the time considered a sexual perversion was something else. And so even as Rustin was professionally gaining notoriety for his

courage, his charisma, and his Gandhian expertise, in his personal life, he was edging closer and closer to disaster. It wasn't just the fact of his homosexuality that was dangerous, it was his appetite for new partners. Musty seems to have calmed down a bit when Rustin decided to move in with a man he loved, as if the traditional domestic setting could act as a kind of smokescreen for his so-called immorality. But within months, Rustin's casual hookups had gotten him kicked out. His boyfriend couldn't tolerate them either. Police in New York arrested him once for solicitation and again for being in the park after midnight. In 1947, after a stint in a Louisiana prison for organizing the first

freedom ride, police knocked his teeth out, not because of his racial activism, because of his sexuality. But the arrest that complicated everything forever took place in January 1953 in Pasadena, California. The felony report states that the persons attacked were Two white male adults. That the property attacked was sex organs. In parentheses, penis.

Under means of attack, it says mouth. Object of attack, sexual gratification. Rustin and his two willing adult partners were pulled from a car and all three men were sentenced to 60 days incarceration. In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom posthumously pardoned Rustin for this conviction, but it was far too late to help ease the effect it had on Rustin's life. It ruined his reputation, hobbled his career, and put him in direct conflict with his essential self.

It was a kind of last straw for A.J. Mustie. This has happened so frequently that I have given Bayard an ultimatum that if it happened again, he would have to resign. Which he did. The Rustin who emerged from prison two months later was a different person from the one who had been handcuffed in that parking lot. For the first time, he saw himself as a liability. Depressed, he sought help from a psychiatrist whose take was that Rustin's promiscuity was in fact a subconscious provocation fueled by a lifetime of justified rage

for his mother's rejection of him, for white supremacy, for a lifetime of justified rage for his mother's rejection of him, for white supremacy, for a lifetime of unjust treatment. All his principles were absolutely right, but he was trying to work in a world that was not ready to deal with his homosexuality. And wouldn't he be better off if he didn't get himself arrested? A couple of years later, just before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, that same psychiatrist gave the following assurance to a Quaker pacifist organization looking to hire Rustin. From a psychiatric point of view,

I could see no reason why the committee could not safely employ Mr. Rustin in any capacity. The basis for that statement is that he has apparently learned to keep his sexual activity private and is no longer acting it out in the community at large. And yet it was Rustin himself who remained the most anxious. All he wanted was to be, in his word, useful. But he knew who he was, and he lived in constant fear that he would booby-trap any endeavor he put his name to. So when he met Dr. King in Montgomery, it was, in a way,

a perfect union. The seasoned, non-violent revolutionary who needed to stay under the radar, and the gifted spiritual leader who was about to explode into the nation's conscience. We hit it off immediately, Rustin recalled years later. gifted spiritual leader who was about to explode into the nation's conscience. We hit it off immediately, Rustin recalled years later. But the rest of King's advisors did not. They were far from thrilled by the man with the communist past and the homosexual present. And they were not the only ones who were suspicious. After two days in Montgomery, Rustin wrote his roommate Arthur Brown, There must be no talk of my being here. Already they are watching me closely

and I am sure they report telephone conversations. I have been followed by police cars and never go out after dark alone. The rumor was being spread by a reporter on the local paper that I was a communist NAACP and that Reverend Abernathy and I were planning a violent uprising. A Negro with a British accent who claimed to be a reporter for Le Figaro of Paris, France, while covering the Montgomery bus boycott two weeks ago, was

labeled an imposter yesterday by the chief U.S. correspondent for the French Daily newspaper. It was because of the questions of this Negro reporter that Sheriff Maxim Butler was forced to break up a mob scene at the Montgomery County Jail February 23rd, on the day the Negro boycotters were arrested. There was no mob scene, only masses of peaceful supporters. The article concludes with a quote from the editor of Le Figaro, the paper for which Rustin purportedly claimed to be working, saying, My newspaper will join in a reward for information leading to the identity of this person. We will certainly make it worth the time of any person

who will furnish information on the identity of this imposter. Rustin, the dapper, well-spoken man with what the FBI called an assumed English accent, was so threatening to the local power structure, he became an immediate target. I have had protecting screws put on my windows, and Abernathy now has 10 men without arms watching his home as the family sleeps. He also told a white female ally to stop speaking to him in public. Meanwhile, back in New York, around 20 of Rustin's own colleagues were meeting to discuss whether or not he should be pulled out of Montgomery, not for his own safety, though that was clearly at risk, but for the movements.

Charles Lawrence feels strongly that it were better if Beyer did not go south, that it would be easy for the police to frame him with his record. He is entirely too vulnerable on his record, and I do not mean his record as a CO. There are some here who feel the local leaders ought to know about Bayard's personal problem, but dare not mention it over the phone. They ought to know the risks that are being taken. Ultimately, Rustin left Montgomery after just eight days, but he had already made himself indispensable. Here he details again to his roommate what he accomplished in his first

few days on the ground in Montgomery. Last night I wrote a song. Worked out this slogan. Goodwill, but action. Decided against mass meetings. It will be harder for them to ban prayer meetings. Much discussion of philosophy. Decided that Friday will be a day of pilgrimage and prayer. Working on a symbol to be worn on the coat or dress. A pin.

Meeting with a committee of 20 youngsters for three hours today, major strategy meeting in the morning, going to set up an artistic wing. He was remarkably effective. King quickly came to rely on him. He also held an unusual place in King's life. He was not a Christian minister, but a Quaker with authority on nonviolent direct action. He was nearly 20 years older than King.

And he was never afraid to disagree with King, no matter how large that figure loomed for anyone else. Their relationship was rich and full of dialogue. King confided in Rustin. I hardly have time to breathe, while Rustin nudged King toward a broader foundation for his message. For some time, I have been deeply disturbed with the manner in which Christian publications have concentrated on the political aspects of racial change and have tended to respond in their thinking for Christians as citizens rather

than addressing them to the moral issues beneath the struggle. They corresponded constantly in writing and over the phone. Rustin ghostwrote King's first article and wrote drafts and provided line editing for much of what King wrote throughout the rest of his life. He was critical to the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which galvanized the movement under King and led the struggle forward after Montgomery. He planned the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom event, which cemented King's status as a leader on the national stage. He was the ideological and tactical backbone of the civil

rights movement from the start, essential to the development of King's philosophy of nonviolence. King depended on Rustin to the point where he pulled him away from other activist organizations. To one colleague, he wrote, We are thoroughly committed to the method of nonviolence in our struggle, and we are convinced that Bayard's expertness and commitment in this area will be of inestimable value in our future efforts. To another, we are in desperate need of his services. Working alongside A. Philip Randolph of the AFL-CIO, a longtime collaborator and ally,

and the man Dr. King referred to as the Dean of Negro Leaders, Rustin staged a series of successful youth marches on Washington in 1958 and 59. Then he conceived a grand plan to stage rallies at both the Republican and Democratic conventions during the run-up to the 1960 presidential election. Dr. King announced the plan at a press conference, promising 5,000 picketers. But this did not sit well with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, who had not been consulted beforehand. Wilkins, like others who had lived through World War II, was of a generation that equated rallies with Hitler. And the NAACP, which had defined the civil rights movement until then, embodied a cool, rational approach.

They fought racism and inequality on legislative and judicial grounds. They sought victories in the courts. They did not gather in the streets. In fact, the NAACP was so constitutionally opposed to mass demonstrations, they reprimanded W.E.B. Du Bois for his part in a civil rights march in Washington in 1948, whereupon he quit the organization he helped found.

To Wilkins, mass protests sullied the cause and were a waste of energy. He held that all the civil rights protests to date didn't influence a single vote by a congressman or a senator, not a single one, and that in Washington, mass lobbying is looked upon with horror. But the next generation of activists felt differently. Inspired by the bus boycott, the marches, and of course the speeches of Dr. King, young people were staging sit-ins all over the country. The youth had an appetite for mass demonstration, and Rustin and Randolph

were eager to harness it. So when Roy Wilkins heard that Rustin and King were planning massive coordinated demonstrations at the conventions, he knew exactly who to go to to help him shut it down. conventions, he knew exactly who to go to to help him shut it down. Adam Clayton Powell had been reigning on Rustin's parade since 1956. Powell, the first Black congressman to be elected in New York State, had been a powerhouse in Washington for 15 years by that point, and he did not like the sense that someone else might be gaining power in his arena, especially if someone else were a young power in his arena, especially if someone else were a young charismatic minister and a gay Quaker pacifist riding a grassroots wave. So he sabotaged them. Powell asserted that certain Negro leaders were captives of behind-the-scenes

interests. Powell contends that Reverend King has been under undue influences ever since Bayard Rustin of the Fellowship for Reconciliation went to Alabama to help in the bus boycott. He insists that Randolph is the captive of socialist interests. King called Powell to say, what was that about? And Powell denied the whole thing. I made no such statements while in Buffalo to anyone at any time. He even issued a press release meant to controvert the article. It seemed the matter was solved.

Then King went to Brazil for church business. And while he was there, he called Rustin in a state. He said that on second thought, maybe we ought not to proceed with marches. He wants out. He doesn't want to make any trouble. And I said, Martin, why do you want to get out? And he said, I don't want to talk about it on the phone. I'm being threatened and it's going to be embarrassing and I want out.

Finally, King admitted that Powell had threatened to publicly charge King and Rustin of having an affair if the demonstrations weren't called off. Rustin was practically unfazed by the threat. It was untrue, after all. But King feared the press. He feared the negative connotation that being affiliated with homosexuality would bring. He was also engaged in extramarital affairs of his own, so probably not anxious for anyone to start looking too closely at his private life. And he knew that Powell was a powerful ally who he needed to keep close. To Powell, King wrote,

How you could say the malicious things that the press reported last week concerning two of your best friends is still a mystery to me. If I am a captive of Bayard Rustin, it is because he came to me so highly recommended by you. Which just goes to show what a personal recommendation from Adam Clayton Powell was worth.

Because of my respect for you and your judgment, I accepted him as one of my assistants. In spite of all, I will hold nothing in my heart against you and I will not go to the press to answer or condemn you. King was also, at that time, embroiled in a different fight in the church world involving one of his deputies, who was also gay. As one of Rustin's friends put it, said, I can't take on two queers at one time. So King's advisors, many of whom also worked closely with Rustin at the SCLC, recommended that King ask for his resignation.

Rustin, perhaps trying to use a technique of nonviolence, acquiesced, hoping it would become obvious to King how unreasonable things were getting. But it was not obvious. King accepted his resignation immediately. In The Courier, the same paper that had printed Powell's slanderous accusations, Rustin wrote, I cannot permit a situation to endure in which my relationship to Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is used to confuse and becloud the basic issues confronting the Negro people. In such a situation, I am no longer able to be of effective service. Congressman Powell has suggested that I am an obstacle to his giving full, enthusiastic support to Dr. King.

I want now to remove that obstacle. I have resigned as Dr. King's special assistant and severed relations with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The episode crushed Rustin. His colleague Dave McReynolds recalls, He was completely demoralized. Bayard was helpless and was in New York and was deeply depressed. Absolutely broken by this.

I hadn't seen Bayard except in the jail period, so destroyed. King didn't go unscathed by the incident either. James Baldwin wrote in a 1961 essay for Harper's Magazine entitled The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King. He lost much moral credit, especially in the eyes of the young, when he allowed Adam Clayton Powell to force the resignation of his extremely able organizer and lieutenant Bayard Rustin. Rustin also has a long and honorable record as a fighter for Negro rights and is one of the most penetrating and able men around. The techniques used by Powell,

who we will not speculate as to his motives, were far from sweet. But King was faced with the choice of defending his organizer, who was also his friend, or agreeing with Powell. And he chose the latter course. As pointed out by biographer John D'Amelio, Rustin was discarded multiple times throughout his life, beginning with his mother's abandonment of him when he was just 10 days old. He lost mentors, jobs, lovers, and countless opportunities just for being who he was.

and countless opportunities just for being who he was. Now he was, as D'Amelio puts it, discarded for something that had never happened and that went publicly unnamed. Later in his life, Rustin himself reflected on that moment. The thing which distressed me was that if Martin had taken the strong stand then that he took in 63, vis-a-vis Strom Thurmond, he could have overcome it and kept me. Rustin and Randolph continued to work together,

even after Rustin was kicked to the fringes of the movement. They were developing a shared vision for a mass mobilization in Washington, meant to coincide with the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. The usual challenges loomed. They would need to unite the many factions of the movement and overcome the same obstacles Rustin had been up against for years. But then Birmingham happened,

and not long after, America witnessed hundreds of Black children being brutalized at the hands of the police. And suddenly, things went into overdrive. Everyone was activated. President Kennedy was calling for legislation. And now the March on Washington was no longer just a dream, but an imperative. King would be the obvious centerpiece of the event.

But who would organize it? Said Bayard. I know Martin very well. He did not have the ability to organize vampires to go to a bloodbath. Some still opposed Rustin's involvement, but Randolph did a jiu-jitsu move by agreeing to run things himself and then immediately deputizing Rustin to do it all. The truth was, there was no one else who could do what needed to be done.

It was very sensitive, very specific, and had never been done before. They had to bring a quarter of a million people to the mall in Washington for a single day only and keep it peaceful. The logistics were no joke. On top of which, things were contentious even among folks on the same side, while the other side was looking to blow it up, literally. And they had only eight weeks to pull the whole thing off. Not to mention, Rustin himself was still a liability.

Now with the March on Washington on the horizon, J. Edgar Hoover, who hated communists, Black people, and homosexuals, started feeding what information he had on Rustin to his favorite senator, Strom Thurmond, the white supremacist from South Carolina. Two weeks before the march was going to happen, Thurmond took to the floor of the Senate to denounce Rustin as a communist and expose his arrest record, including the police booking slip from Pasadena. Unlike the attack by Powell three years earlier, this one came at such a time and from such an antagonist that Rustin couldn't be abandoned by his compatriots.

They had to defend him in order to protect the movement and the march, and they did. Even Roy Wilkins. Even Martin Luther King. Later, Rustin would say of Thurmond, It was the best thing he could have done for me. Randolph, Rustin's most steadfast and longtime supporter, spoke for everyone involved when he said at a press conference. I am sure I speak for the combined Negro leadership in voicing my complete confidence in Bayard Rustin's character, integrity, and extraordinary

ability. Privately, though, King still had reservations, which were captured in a phone conversation with Clarence Jones that was secretly recorded by the FBI. I hope Bayard doesn't take a drink before the march. Yes, and grab one little brother, because he will grab one when he has a drink. Of course, we all know the ending to the story of the march on Washington. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. It was, in a word, iconic.

And Rustin continued to work with and advise King, though King could never muster the courage to put Rustin in charge of the SCLC as he said he wanted to do. King continued relying on Rustin's advice until the end of his life. We can't know, of course, what Dr. King's career would have looked like if he hadn't met Bayard Rustin in 1956. But the fact is that they encountered one another at a crucial point in the timeline. Rustin was King's tutor, his fixer, his confidant. Where Dr. King had a dream, Bayard Rustin had a plan. And together, they changed our country. But in popular American

memory, the legacy belongs to King alone. It's possible Rustin wouldn't have cared about that. He was not a vainglorious man. But it is the least we can do to know who he was. loving, glorious man. But it is the least we can do to know who he was. And who he was was this. When Rustin tried to talk King's inner circle into putting away their weapons, they struck a compromise, which was to install floodlights around King's home.

Metaphorically speaking, it's quite satisfying to say that King put down the gun and picked up a light. But Rustin didn't see it that way. I am opposed to the lights, for psychologically they provide a kind of inescapable target. But I have been unable to convince the committee of it, although King agreed with me. He goes on to say,

One cannot just tell people to do things against their judgment without using the most subtle and most dangerous forms of violence. So we hope that further discussion, for which there is really not time now, will in future clear this matter up. Such was Rustin's dedication to the practice of nonviolence. He stood vigil even over his own desire to persuade his allies to his way of thinking. That's the kind of thing that's easy to miss and impossible to memorialize. You can't build a monument to it or engrave it on a metal. But like the man himself, it made all the difference.

Special thanks to Jay Holtham and Anthony Obie. Thank you. for lending their voices to this story. I'd also like to thank my significant other for always giving credit where credit is due. Join me tomorrow as I look deeper into Bayard Rustin's legacy with Eric Marcus, host of the podcast Making Gay History. Significant Others is written and read by me, Liza Powell O'Brien. I'm not a historian, and I'm greatly indebted to the work of those who are. In some cases, I use diaries or newspapers or court records

as sources, but most often I draw from biographies and autobiographies and articles, which represent countless hours of work by people who are far more knowledgeable than I. Sources for each episode are listed in the show notes. If you hear something interesting and you want to know more, please consider ordering these books from your independent bookseller. And if you are a historian or someone who knows something about the people I'm talking about, and you'd like to take issue with an impression I've made or a conclusion I've drawn, I welcome the dialogue. Finally, if you have an episode suggestion, let us know at significantpod at gmail.com. History is filled with characters, and we tend to focus on just a few of them. Significant Others is produced by Jen Samples. Our executive producers are Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Colin Anderson.

Engineering and sound design by Eduardo Perez, Rich Garcia, and Joanna Samuel. Music and scoring by Eduardo Perez and Hannes Brown. Research and fact-checking by Michael Waters and Hannah Sio. Special thanks to Lisa Berm, Jason Chalemi, and Joanna Solitaroff. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.