Reclaiming Rustin

by John D’Emilio

Editor’s Note. Durng the Fortieth Anniversary Observance of the March on Washington, many tributes were paid to Bayard Rustin, organizer of the original March on Washington in 1963. Among the tributes were these remarks by John D’Emilio, author of the newly published Lost Prophet. The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (Free Press, 2003)

Photo above (Associated Press, 1963) is from the cover of the powerful new documentary, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (www.rustin.org), shown nationwide on PBS, now available from FOR for $64.95

We've gathered today to honor the memory of a man whose legacy has been hidden from history primarily because he was gay. But I'm here to tell you that we will be doing Bayard Rustin yet another injustice if we reclaim him as a gay hero and forget what he stood for.

Rustin believed that violence could never bring justice and war could never bring peace.

He believed that nationalism was a destructive force in the world.

He believed that ordinary people had the power to remake the world.

He believed that the most antagonistic human relationships—between the colonizer and the colonized, between the black sharecropper and the white sheriff, between the filthy rich and the struggling poor—could find a place of reconciliation.

Rustin believed that the dream of racial justice and the promise of American democracy could only be realized if the gap between rich and poor was closed.

Forty years after the historic March on Washington, Rustin's vision remains inspiring. We need it now more than ever. So let's reclaim him as a hero—but let's also remember what he stood for, and let's pledge to follow in his footsteps.

John D'Emilio is a professor of history and gender & women's studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  He was the founding director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and has written a number of books about the history and politics of sexuality.