Anytime you mention Bayard Rustin’s name as a hero, you’re good in my book. The mastermind behind the 1963 March on Washington, Rustin rarely gets mentioned by the general public as a civil rights leader, and only seems to come up whenever people (again, rarely) talk about LGBT issues in activist / POC communities. The conversation only gets uglier when people dilute his image for their own political purpose, exalting him to heights I’m confident even he would dissuade.
Let me explain. As far as I can read (and I’ve read a lot), Rustin was associated with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and A. Phillip Randolph in various points of their ideological growths. For someone so determined on speaking truth to power, he sure made lots of friends across a broad spectra. That leads me to believe one very
