Building Bridges Through Revolutionary Nonviolence: Bayard Rustin and the future of Peace and Freedom

Building Bridges
through
Revolutionary
Nonviolence
Bayard Rustin and the future of
Peace and Freedom

Building Bridges through Revolutionary Nonviolence-
Bayard Rustin and the future of Peace and Freedom

 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of civil rights icon Bayard Rustin, and many
groups—from the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee and inter-faith
Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) to the labor federation AFL-CIO to countless educational
institutions—are engaged in celebrating this man of humble beginnings. The National Black
Justice Coalition, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, has dedicated Mandy Carter, a long-time
community leader, to coordinate Centennial activities in recognition of the ground-breaking
work of Rustin as an out gay man. Rustin, however, was more than simply a campaigner for
individual liberties—be they for Black or gay folks. He was a revolutionary critic of the
status quo, one whose commitment to radical pacifism and ability to bring together broad
and often conflicting peoples made a mark still very relevant today. This slideshow, put
together by the War Resisters League (WRL, for whom Rustin served as Executive Secretary
from 1953 till 1965—including the period when he was chief architect of the historic 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom), focuses on this radical bridge-building aspect
of Rustin’s life:

 Building Bridges through Revolutionary Nonviolence—Bayard Rustin and the future of
Peace and Freedom

Bayard Rustin and
the future of Peace
and Freedom
Conscientious Objection
and the early Civil Rights
Movement:
1940s-early ‘50s

Bayard Rustin and the future of Peace and Freedom-
Conscientious Objection and the early Civil Rights Movement

 Like many of the early civil
rights leadership, Rustin’s
roots were in the aftermath
of WWII—when many
returning African American
veterans found that the
freedoms they had fought for
in Europe were still denied to
them at home. Rustin,
however, a pacifist since his
Quaker youth, was one of
many Conscientious
Objectors (C.O.s) who began
their fight against
segregation in the prison
halls where committed C.O.s
spent the war.


 The 1947 Journey of
Reconciliation, organized by the
newly-founded Congress on
Racial Equality (CORE) and
recognized as the predecessor of
the 1960s Freedom Ride
movement, was coordinated by
Rustin and fellow WWII C.O.
George Houser, both of whom
were on FOR staff at the time.
Other WWII C.O.s played key
roles in the initial Journey,
including WRL stalwarts Igal
Roodenko, Jim Peck, Wally
Nelson and Ernest Bromley (all
pictured here).


 Even in 1948, the significance of the Journey
was understood in progressive circles.


 CORE and the
FOR produced
WE
CHALLENGED
JIM CROW!—
a booklet co-
authored by
Rustin and
Houser on their
reflections about
the Journey.


 The “Racial-Industrial”
section of the FOR held a
Song Festival to raise
funds for ongoing civil
rights work, which
included the voices of
Rustin, Houser, and their
WWII C.O. buddy, fellow
African-American activist
Bill Sutherland.

Bayard Rustin and
the future of Peace
and Freedom-
Revolutionary Movement
in Africa and Asia;
McCarthyism and
Reaction in America:
1950s

Revolutionary Movement in Africa and Asia;
McCarthyism and Reaction in America

 Rustin’s late 1940s racial
justice work in the U.S. was
part and parcel of an
international peace
movement for the
liberation of all. Rustin
travelled to India in 1948
(just weeks after Gandhi’s
assassination) and met with
Prime Minister Nehru.
Together with Sutherland
and Houser, he helped form
the first U.S. organization
in solidarity with the
African independence
movements.


 While in India, Rustin
obtained this Free India
Cap, the badge of honor
worn by those arrested
during the struggle for
independence. 15 years
later, as he was
coordinating the Great
March for Jobs and
Freedom at the Lincoln
Memorial, Rustin
designed a similar cap for
campaign marshals to
wear.


 In 1953, as Bill
Sutherland was moving
to the Gold Coast to
assist the African
independence
movements, Rustin
also met with the
leading Pan-Africanists
of the day, including
Kwame Nkrumah
(pictured here).


 Rustin met with other African
leaders, including Zambian
leader Kenneth Kaunda, who—
like Rustin—was an admirer of
U.S. pacifist elder A.J. Muste,
and Nigerian nationalist (soon-
to-be President of the First
Republic, pictured here)
Nnamdi “Zik” Akiziwe.


 Throughout the early 1950s,
Rustin was a much-in-demand
speaker, on nonviolence, equal
rights and the freedom
movement in the South, and
“Africa in Revolt!”


 Rustin was one of
the international
participants in the
West African-based
Sahara Protest
Team, which
challenged French
nuclear testing by
their physical
presence on the
test sites.

Top Row, l. to r.: Unidentified Ghanaian activist; Bill Sutherland; Rustin; unidentified; British Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament (CND) founder and WRI Chair Michael Randle. Bottom Row, l. to r.: British artist Francis
Hoyland; Ghanaian E.C.Quaye, Chairman of the Accra Municipal Council, and of Ghana CND; French volunteer
Esther Peter; unidentified; Guyanese Pan-African Congress organizer T. Ras Makonnen.


 Late in 1953, however,
Rustin’s life would
take another turn.
Rustin was arrested
for “sexual
perversion”—as
consensual
homosexual activity
was referred to in
California at that time.
He was promptly
asked to resign from
his position at the
Fellowship of
Reconciliation.

Bayard Rustin and
the future of Peace
and Freedom
War Resistance
and Homophobia:
WRL’s Hiring of
Bayard Rustin

War Resistance and Homophobia: WRL’s Hiring of Rustin

 Shortly after his resignation
from FOR, War Resisters League
Chairman Roy Finch sent this
memo to the WRL Executive
Committee and National
Advisory Council, proposing
Rustin as the candidate of choice
to replace Sid Aberman as WRL
Executive Secretary. Finch noted
the extensive experience Rustin
acquired through his work in the
pacifist movement, as well as
some of Rustin’s other
significant accomplishments.


 The proposal was met with strong feelings—
both positive and negative. One WRL
advisor, a Professor of Psychology at
Roosevelt College, wrote in the clinical
terms of the day that “Bayard’s malady”
was a “particularly obdurate one,” in great
need of “persistent vigilance” and
“preventative hygiene” to prevent a
relapse.
 Another advisor, however—Dr. Herbert
Kellman of John Hopkins University
(subsequently a leading figure at Harvard
University’s Department of Psychology)—
had the forethought to state that “it would
be a shame for the pacifist movement to
waste the talents, skills, and experience
that Bayard has.” Kellman added his
professional opinion, calling into question
popular medical jargon, that there was
“little question that Bayard will be able to
handle the job successfully despite his so-
called ‘emotional problems.’”


 Frances Witherspoon, who had (with
her partner Tracy Mygatt) helped
Jessie Wallace Hughan found the
WRL in 1923, addressed some of her
concerns with hiring Rustin.
 She wrote:
I have learned that the psychological and
physical trouble from which he suffers is
not a recent one, but of fairly long
standing, and I do not feel that the recent
regrettable episode is far enough in the
past—actually but a few months—for his
psychiatrist or Bayard himself to be able
to guarantee that there will be no
recurrence.


 Fellow WWII C.O. and Libertarian
Press and Workers Cooperative
member Dave Dellinger (who would
go on to be a leader in the major
1960s anti-Vietnam War coalitions)
wrote a prescient letter, noting that
“the power of nonviolence” works
differently than that of lowest-
common-denominator electoral
politics, but rather “through
dedicated people.” Critical of the
FOR’s handling of Bayard’s sexual
orientation, Dellinger saw the need
for a “grassroots, dynamic pacifism,”
which Rustin could bring with his
“exceptional talents and dedication.”
In his four-page, single-spaced letter
to the Executive, Dellinger stated:
I would rather take a chance of losing a
thousand votes and winning a hundred
pacifists, by having Bayard work for us.


 An open letter addressed to
the Executive Committee and
Advisory Council members
explained the official vote
count procedures for the hiring
of Bayard Rustin: he was to be
hired as War Resisters League
Executive Secretary.
 The official vote count was
twenty-four in favor and five in
opposition.


 These original notes were
taken during the official vote
count, tallying the numbers
needed to hire Bayard
Rustin. He began work as the
WRL Executive Secretary in
October 1953.

Bayard Rustin
and the future of
Peace and
Freedom
Tumultuous Times:
1953-1960

Tumultuous Times: 1953-1960

 Though Rustin’s early years with the WRL
provide evidence for both a personal
desire to remain connected with the rest
of the mainstream peace movement and
the difficulties inherent in that position,
his steadfast commitment to radical
nonviolence and human rights remained
strong.

 Rustin was a key co-author of the widely-
read and influential 1955 American Friends
Service Committee booklet, Speak Truth
to Power: A Quaker Search for an
Alternative to Violence, but his name was
deliberately omitted because of the earlier
scandal. In time for Rustin's Centenary,
the AFSC has reprinted the book with
acknowledgement and credit to Rustin.


 Under the leadership of A.J.
Muste, and working with Dave
Dellinger, Barbara Deming,
David McReynolds, and many
others, Rustin became a key
founder of Liberation
magazine, an important tool
throughout the 1950s and 60s
in connecting the peace and
freedom movements.
 This letter by Rustin and Roy
Finch notes the potential
revolutionary and ground-
breaking role which Liberation
magazine could have in local
community organizing.


 Liberation‘s early issues
wasted no time in using
Rustin’s contacts in the South
to spotlight the growing civil
rights campaigns which were
shaking the nation.
 This second issue, from April
1956, featured Rustin and the
man he was spending more
and more time advising—
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


 More than six months later,
Dr. King’s writings returned to
Liberation—along with the
commentary of Eleanor
Roosevelt, Ralph Bunche,
trade unionist A. Philip
Randolph and others—
in reports on the ongoing
bus boycott in Montgomery,
Alabama


 Montgomery, Alabama became the first
of a series of War Resisters League-
produced-and-distributed booklets by
Rustin highlighting the significance of
the growing protests to end Jim Crow
Laws. In it, he reiterated that the
resistance to discrimination was much
more than a series of “senseless acts of
civil disobedience”; the actions were to
call attention to the “permanently de-
institutionalizing racism” still present
in U.S. life.
 In a preface to the pamphlet, Unitarian
minister Homer Jack noted that
Rustin’s “contribution to interpreting
the Gandhian approach to leadership
cannot be overestimated.”


 This 1957 booklet
Non-Violence in the
South, also authored
by Rustin and
produced by WRL,
outlined the deepening
nonviolent resistance to
racial segregation.


 A 1959 WRL Fund Appeal shows some
of the ways in which Rustin
consistently built bridges between
people and issues—outlining the
connections between Cold War
Eisenhower-Khrushchev talks and the
growing struggle in the South to
articulate the power of nonviolence.
 Writing about the “vast changes”
taking place, Rustin commented on
the issue of armed self-defense raised
by a nationally-publicized incident
involving NAACP leader Robert F.
Williams, noting that he and the WRL
had helped arrange the first public
discussion of the subject, “one of the
hottest issues of today.”


 Rustin and the WRL also helped
give voice to the debate by
publishing articles in Liberation by
Williams, Dr. King, and Catholic
Worker founder Dorothy Day.
As Williams and others were
asking whether “Negroes” could
still afford to be pacifists,
Dellinger raised the question to
his white colleagues: “Are
pacifists willing to be Negroes?,”
standing in solidarity with those
on the front lines of the struggle.


 Civil Rights issues were just
one of Rustin’s work areas
while an active WRL staff
member. He helped coordinate
the 1960-61 “Walk To
Moscow,” a peace effort that
involved marching across
Western Europe towards the
Eastern “iron curtain.”


 By 1960, however, the work in the South
was too pressing to have Rustin remain at
WRL headquarters in New York. With the
intervention of A. Philip Randolph, whose
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was
amongst the first unions to successfully
organize Black workers, Rustin was asked
to work directly as a full-time advisor to
Dr. King.
 This 1960 letter from Randolph to WRL
Chair Eddie Gottlieb thanked the WRL for
enabling Rustin to go on leave from WRL
to fulfill the “supremely important
assignment … in the interest of civil
rights.” A letter to WRL from Dr. King also
reiterated his gratitude, stating that “we
are convinced that Bayard’s expertness
[in nonviolence] will be of inestimable
value in our future efforts.”

Bayard Rustin
and the future
of Peace and
Freedom
Front Lines:
1960-1965

Front Lines: 1960-1965

 The early 1960s were more
than intense, with Rustin
maintaining a role in WRL
while working to establish and
broaden the Southern
Christian Leadership
Conference (which he, Ella
Baker, King, and others helped
found). Rustin utilized WRL as
a major vehicle to help
mobilize support from
Northern whites.


 With both a deep commitment
to revolutionary nonviolence
and a desire to maintain
dialogue with the leaders of
the day, Rustin took part in a
1962 debate with Minister
Malcolm X, discussing their
differences regarding strategy
and tactics. Many reported
that this debate was one of the
best matched of either men’s
careers—with both of them
expressing intelligent,
passionate, and important
insights on the way forward.


 The Meaning of Birmingham,
authored by Rustin and
produced by WRL, was a key
tool in organizing support for a
March on Washington which
Rustin had been tasked with
coordinating. This March for
Jobs and Freedom had been
talked about by Randolph and
others for years, but it seemed
that in August of 1963 it might
really take place.


The Great March on Washington of August 28, 1963 has come to be known for the
convergence of 300,000 people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. Though
the morning newspapers wrote of the radical words of Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee spokesperson John Lewis, it was the triumphant “I Have
A Dream” speech of Dr. King which would live on in people’s minds.


 The subsequent issue of
LIFE Magazine featured March
architect, Rustin, and his
mentor A. Philip Randolph on
the cover—catapulting both
into the national spotlight. The
issue also noted the “flames of
fury” which were engulfing a
far-away land known as
Vietnam…


 Back in New York, WRL,
Liberation magazine, and the
Socialist Party co-sponsored a
talk at the Community Church
on a follow-up to the March.
Rustin joined author James
Baldwin, whose book-length
essay, The Fire Next Time, was
beginning to receive
widespread attention.


 Rustin heightened his
collaborations with other labor
unions, most notably New York’s
United Federation of Teachers
(who had recently won some
major collective bargaining
victories). The 1964 New York
City Schools Boycott saw a one-
day collaboration between
parents, teachers, peace
activists, and members of the
Black and Puerto Rican
communities in a massive
450,000-strong stay-away in
support of desegregation.
 Pictured here with UFT leader Al
Shanker, Rustin’s work with
teachers would become an
ongoing commitment for the
rest of his life.


 In this April 1964 WRL Fund
Appeal (with a photo of Ralph
DiGia just after a month in a
Georgia prison following a
racially-integrated Quebec-
Washington-Guantánamo
Peace Walk), Rustin noted that
“one of the most urgent
problems in the peace
movement today is how to
‘relate’ the issue of peace to
the other great social issues of
our day — Civil Rights,
unemployment, automation.”


 By November 1965, however,
with union leaders and civil
rights associates urging
greater involvement in
electoral campaigns—and
many in the peace movement
now focusing on sharp
protests against the escalating
war in Vietnam—Rustin
formally resigned from his
WRL positions.
 He was to begin work at a new
venue set up by and named
after his mentor: the A. Philip
Randolph Institute.

Bayard Rustin and
the future of Peace
and Freedom
From Protest
to Politics:
1965-1970s

From Protest to Politics

 As many became
increasingly
disenfranchised by US
government policies,
Rustin asserted that the
only path to freedom was
through mainstream
economic alliances.
Pictured here with
Baldwin and United Auto
Workers President Walter
Reuther, Rustin
continued to pursue work
with the American
Federation of Labor
(AFL-CIO).


 Despite this, in 1965 Rustin was
still speaking out forcefully
against the war in Vietnam. In a
speech delivered at the Madison
Square Garden rally organized
by peace group SANE, Rustin
defiantly stated that, “though
Congress refuses to admit it, we
are at war. It is a useless,
destructive, disgusting war.”
 Recently published for the first
time, the speech is included in
WRL and PM Press’
We Have Not Been Moved:
Resisting Racism and Militarism
in 21st Century America.


 Despite the widening divide
between Rustin and his old
pacifist comrades, he also
maintained a connection with
many old friends, evidenced in
this 1966 note to WRL’s Ralph
DiGia, where he agrees to
serve on the WRL Advisory
Board.


 In 1973,
Rustin and
A. Philip
Randolph also
agreed to
serve as
members of
WRL’s 50th
Anniversary
Celebration
Committee.


 But the dramas and the traumas of
the time proved too great; for many
years Rustin would have little
contact with the radical pacifists so
central to his early life.
 This note, written to Bill Sutherland
in Tanzania just weeks after the
assassination of Dr. King, has Rustin
admitting to feeling “too
discombobulated” to write.
“Martin’s death leaves a fantastic
vacuum that nobody-not me and
ten others combined-could fill.”


 For much of the 1970s and early
80s, Rustin’s domestic efforts were
focused on work with the Randolph
Institute; his international work
included leadership roles in the
International Rescue Committee
(IRC) and Freedom House.
 Pictured while in Thailand with
Norwegian actress/director and IRC
supporter Liv Ullman, Rustin’s work
with the Vietnamese “Boat People”
(and other anti-communist refugees
who accepted support from the U.S.
government) seemed out of step to
many of his previous colleagues.

Bayard Rustin and
the future of Peace
and Freedom
Circles and
Bridges

Circles and Bridges

 By the mid-1980s, Rustin began reconnecting with his pacifist comrades,
attending, for example, a War Resisters International conference in India.
These radical reunions brought Rustin full-circle, back to old friends and the
methodology he helped popularize.

With
Igal
Roodenko
With Michael Randle

Circles and Bridges

 Under the auspices of the
A. Philip Randolph Institute,
Rustin helped found Project
South Africa—with patrons
including Archbishop
Desmond Tutu (top left).
 At the WRI conference in
India, he (and his partner
Walter Naegle, center) met
activists from the Council of
Churches, Black Sash, and
the newly-formed End
Conscription Campaign—
a nonviolent grassroots
organization which Rustin
provided considerable
support to.

Circles and Bridges

 In 1986, Rustin built bridges to
one community he had long
been associated with, but
rarely engaged in political
work for: the burgeoning Gay
and Lesbian rights movement.
 This GCN cover story made
Rustin’s position clear: the
Black and Gay movements
must work together if victories
are to be won!

Circles and Bridges

 By the time Bayard
turned 75, with all the
roads he had travelled, all
the bridges amongst
diverse and often
divergent people he had
built, it truly was a cause
for celebration. The
Hilton ballroom was filled
with anarchists and
mainstream politicians;
messages came from
former U.S. Presidents
and foreign dignitaries.

Circles and Bridges

 Alongside his aunt, Rustin
blew out the candles
accompanied by Holocaust
survivor and author Elie
Wiesel, who had been awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize just a
few months earlier.

Circles and Bridges

 And then he was gone…

 This high-spirited, flamboyant,
funny, brilliant, challenging
soul force — this strong and
courageous spirit who seemed
always filled with energy and
passion — passed away due to
a heart attack, less than six
months after his birthday
dinner.

Circles and Bridges

 An organizer till the very end,
his life partner Walter Naegle
made sure that each memorial
program spotlighted the words
which summarized Rustin’s
undying outlook:

I pledge that I will join and support
all actions undertaken in good faith
and in accord with time-honored
democratic traditions of nonviolent
protest or peaceful assembly and
petition…I will pledge my heart and
my mind and my body,
unequivocally and without regard to
personal sacrifice to the
achievement of social peace through
social justice.

Building Bridges through Revolutionary Nonviolence

 More than 25 years after Bayard Rustin’s
death and 100 years since his birth, Rustin
is still iconized and idolized by some,
demonized and criticized by others. Yet
some of his most pressing concerns—that
any rights-based freedom movement
must understand its related economic
issues—are as prescient now as ever
before. And his preferred strategic
method—massive, nonviolent resistance—
is as relevant now as it was then. It is time
to recognize Rustin in the context of his
own time, and build our own strategic
bridges to the future.

Building Bridges through Revolutionary Nonviolence

This slideshow was researched, drawn from the archives of,
written, edited and produced by
• Matt Meyer, War Resisters League National Committee member
• Nkese ‘Nikki’ Rankine, Bilezikian Intern (Winter/Spring 2012)
• Kimber Heinz, WRL National Organizing Coordinator
With Support from and Special Thanks to
• Linda Thurston, WRL Office Coordinator
• Walter Naegle, long-time partner of Bayard Rustin; estate executor
• Sky Hall, WRL Archivist
• Wendy Chmielewski, Curator, Swarthmore College Peace Collection
• Mandy Carter, Rustin Centennial Coordinator; co-founder of the
National Black Justice Coalition (http://nbjc.org/)
A project of the War Resisters League
www.warresisters.org

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