Why Have I Never Heard of Bayard Rustin???

I had no idea what a Bayard or a Rustin was.  But after watching the movie, Rustin, on Netflix, I know who Bayard Rustin is.  And now you will, too.

The movie has great credentials.  Produced by Michele and Barack Obama, directed by George C. Wolfe, former artistic director of the New York Public Theatre, and starring Coleman Domingo.  He was brilliant. I don’t recall ever having seen him before.  He is a very important star of the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard (I love his first name) Rustin.  I bet you didn’t know that it was his idea and his organizational skills that put together the peaceful March on Washington in August of 1963 that brought together over 250,000 people of all colors, shapes, and sizes to proclaim in a singular voice that was heard even by those that didn’t want to hear the words and prayers for FREEDOM.

How could we not know this man? Why isn’t he right up there with John Lewis, Medgar Evans, and Thurgood Marshall? Why don’t we know his name? Because he was a homosexual. He was gay at a time when it was illegal to be gay, and the powers that be, J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedys, and here’s the kicker for me, Rustin’s own black power base wanted to bury him. He was the embarrassment that risked losing any chance for the Civil Rights Bill to pass Congress. The truth is, with or without his being gay, that bill had a snowball-in-hell chance of passing. It took John F. Kennedy’s assassination and Lyndon B. Johnson’s force majeure to finally push it through.  But that’s another story.

Rustin is a well-written story of this vulnerable, flawed, not because he was gay but because he was human, brilliant political strategist who came up against the bigotry of his own people.  I am a two-for-one minority, a Jew, and a woman. I know if I want to make changes, I have to join with others to make those changes. My power is in being part of something bigger than myself. The best way to destroy a movement is to create a climate of divisiveness.  

Bayard Rustin was brought down by his own party. But he was down and not out.    

You have to see this one, my friends.

And here is something I do not understand. I read about Rustin a little bit before it premiered. The promotions that streaming platforms send out to their customers.  But when I finally went to find it just a week or so later, I had a hard time finding it.  This is an important film. Why is it being buried like Bayard Rustin was? I am a drama queen. I know it.  Is there some sort of conspiracy? The executives of Netflix:  Hey!  We did our part. We made the film. We have a profit margin to consider… back to horror, rom-com, and Santa’s elves.   

My reply. Hey! Not just because I say so but because he was an important man left out of the history of a movement that, from my perspective, is still constantly having to prove itself. I read all the time about this State, or that Senator or Congressman, or this Justice shaking the foundations of the Civil Rights laws to see if they will hold fast.

So yes, Rustin has to be seen, and you have to spread the word.  

Don’t listen to me…

Listen to this guy…      

Love, Sally-Jane