Bayard Rustin and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom: A Perfect Fit
By Norman and Velma Hill
 |
| Norman Hill |
Beginning
in the early 1940s, Rustin devoted his life and vast array of talents to the
advancement of democracy and individual rights for all, at home and abroad. He
was a fearless activist, an elegant writer, an astute thinker, a galvanizing
speaker, a master strategist, a great organizer, and a mentor and friend.
Consider
this: In 1947, Rustin helped organize the first freedom rides for the cause of
racial integration. He was arrested—one among the more than twenty times he was
incarcerated for his civil rights activities—and spent 22 days on a North
Carolina chain gang for participating in those rides. He wrote an absorbing
account of his experience that became part of a successful campaign to abolish
the state’s chain gangs, but not before he made the chain-gang he labored in
more humane before he left it.
Understanding
that striving for freedom was a global struggle, Rustin visited India in the
1940s to learn more about Mahatma Gandhi’s principles and his anti-colonial
movement. Rustin directly applied what he learned when he went south in 1955
during the Montgomery Bus Boycott against segregated seating. There, he advised
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the full meaning of Gandhi’s pacifism, which
barred the use of violence even in self-defense, something Dr. King came to
famously and effectively embrace.
After the boycott’s triumph,
Rustin convinced King to bring his civil rights struggle to the entire South.
In 1957, Rustin played a major role in organizing King’s Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, an organization of Southern black pastors pressing for
civil rights.
Rustin’s
extraordinary organizing abilities were in full display in 1963 when, in a few
months, he organized the 250,000-person-strong March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom, initiated by his mentor, the great African-American labor leader, A.
Philip Randolph. Randolph was also considered the father of the modern civil
rights movement. At the time, the march was the largest demonstration in
American history, and it helped generate the political momentum for passage of
the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The march, whose
50th anniversary was marked in August, represents a fulfillment of the
Randolph/Rustin vision. While Rustin believed in nonviolence, he did not
believe that meant passivity. Nonviolence was an active tool for mass movement,
grassroots action through which people liberated themselves.
The Great
March was based on the principle that freedom, as Rustin knew, was not given,
but had to be seized by the oppressed. The march was also based on the
principle of majoritarianism, which Rustin supported as a democratic principle
and a practical strategy for racial minorities. He knew that as an oppressed
minority, blacks had to initiate their own freedom struggle and that they also
had to form coalitions with others to accomplish this.
Consequently,
Rustin reached out to many types of groups, including trade unions. Like
Randolph, Rustin understood that blacks were exploited on the basis of class as
well as race and, therefore, the best ally of blacks was organized labor,
which, in fact, sent tens of thousands of its members to the '63 march.
Not
surprisingly, Rustin, an openly gay man, viewed discrimination against any
minority groups as a threat to democracy, and unlike many on the authoritarian Left-Black-
black and white- he opposed black racism just as he did the white variety. He
also considered a black, go-it-alone strategy doomed to fail. He never stopped
trumpeting freedom for all people, which prompted Rustin to stand against
colonialism in India and Africa. And, unlike many radicals of his time, he
condemned all dictatorships, those of the political left as well as of the
right. This
principled position moved him to defy those who made fashionable heroes of Mao
Zedong and Fidel Castro.
As close
friends of Bayard who worked side-by-side with him in the planning of the 1963
March on Washington, we thank you, President Obama. You could not have chosen a
more perfect recipient than Bayard Rustin for this year's Medal of Freedom. And
while he died in 1987, he lives through the many of us who knew and loved him,
and the millions more who are the beneficiaries of his tireless quest for
racial equality, human rights, and worldwide democracy.
Bayard
Rustin will posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday
November 20, 2013.
 |
| Bayard Rustin |
No comments:
Post a Comment