Description

Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics

Hardcover – September 26, 2023
Edited by Michael G. Long • Foreword by Clayborne Carson

A 2024 Outstanding Academic Title and a landmark contribution to queer and civil rights history, Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics brings long overdue recognition to one of the most influential—and too often marginalized—architects of the American freedom struggle.

While the 1963 March on Washington is remembered as the stage for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the mass demonstration itself—the logistics, the coalition-building, the strategic brilliance—was the work of Bayard Rustin, a gay Black pacifist whose vision shaped the direction of modern civil rights activism. This essential volume gathers incisive essays from leading scholars, activists, and Rustin’s own partner, Walter Naegle, to reveal the full scope of Rustin’s life and legacy.

A tireless organizer and world-traveling advocate of nonviolence, Rustin introduced Gandhian principles to the U.S. civil rights movement, co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, fought for economic justice, and served as both strategist and conscience to Dr. King. Yet his sexuality made him a target—he was threatened, demoted, ostracized, and forced into the shadows at pivotal moments.

This collection restores Rustin to his rightful place: as a brilliant tactician, a visionary thinker, and an openly gay man whose political courage and moral clarity laid foundations for everything from LGBTQ+ liberation to Black Lives Matter. Candid, wide-ranging, and rigorously researched, Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics offers a definitive portrait of one of America’s most important—and most overlooked—champions of democracy.