Arts
Prophet of Peace
Historian John D’Emilio highlights the role of gay peace and
civil rights activist Bayard Rustin
by Robert William Wolff
John
D'Emilio, Ph.D., offered a lecture in late October at the University of
Vermont on the importance of Bayard Rustin as a gay man and a black civil
rights activist committed to nonviolence. D'Emilio specializes in the
history of sexuality and of social movements. A Guggen-heim and National
Endowment for the Humanities fellow, he also served from 1995 to 1997
as the founding director of the Policy Institute at the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force.
At UVM, the University of Illinois professor
of history and of gender and women's studies used his award-winning book,
Lost Prophet: the Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (2003), to
present Rustin's contributions and to reflect on some points about achieving
human rights. His lecture demonstrated how history helps to communicate
ways people can influence the future.
I met Dr. D'Emilio on campus before his
lecture and asked for suggestions to make sure the story of modern gay
liberation is not lost here in Vermont. "Americans are not big on
history," D'Emilio observed, adding that there is little historic
memory, despite interest in some of America's big names - Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln. "If there were not a day celebrating Martin Luther
King’s birth, he would be largely forgotten," D'Emilio declared.
Universities have to be pushed to include
teaching of popular struggles, including those of the lgbtq community,
he insisted. It essential for people who want to pass our legacy to young
people to take advantage of informal opportunities as well: "Education
must occur outside educational institutions. Statewide organizations need
to ask what they can do about teaching lgbtq history. Bars need to ask
what they can display on their walls." I thought immediately that
we may want to start celebrating a queer history day here in Vermont.
Before starting Lost Prophet, D'Emilio
did not intend to write a biography: "I hate biography!" He
wanted to write about the 1960s. As he studied the decade’s social
history, he found that Rustin, born in 1912, a Quaker, a pacifist, an
African-American gay man, played a pivotal role in the social and political
happenings of that decade. The book that resulted is a detailed telling
of Bayard Rustin's political life, with threads of the leader's private
life that impinge on his political life woven in.
Bayard Rustin was a civil rights strategist,
radical pacifist, and international human rights activist, who planted
Gandhian nonviolence on American soil, and was a teacher and mentor to
Martin Luther King, Jr. Rustin successfully planned and executed some
of the most imaginative and influential citizen protests in the 1960s.
According to D'Emilio, "By the time the 1960s began, Bayard Rustin
had learned that war would never bring peace, and that democracy is only
secure when wealth is spread around."
D'Emilio described the 1960s as a decade
that started in an atmosphere of hope for the future. By its midpoint,
it had turned into a time of repeated assassinations, the quagmire of
Vietnam, and profound loss of hope. Bayard Rustin held fast to hope and
devoted his significant leadership and tactical skills to peace and nonviolence
resistance organizations.
Anything one might want to learn about making
a better world can be learned from studying Bayard Rustin's life, D'Emilio
announced. Rustin's strategic and tactical efforts on behalf of peace
and nonviolent civil rights actions were perhaps the most effective ever.
And he did it as an African-American man who had been arrested for what
were, at that time, sexual crimes: cruising for sex with men.
Rustin's sexual promiscuity was well
known: he did not hide it or feel ashamed of his homosexuality. His colleagues'
reactions to the resulting potential for public relations problems, however,
kept him in the background of activities in which he played key roles.
During and after a relationship with Davis Platt, a young white man who
changed his choice of college to be near Rustin's office, Rustin had a
string of embarrassing arrests on 'morals' charges in the late 1940s and
early 1950s. Because of his continued scrapes with the law over his sexual
activities, Rustin never had a secure home in the civil rights movement
even though he organized the 1963 march on Washington and guided Dr. King's
political activities for several years as he gave voice to the non-violent
actions for peace, freedom and civil rights that were grasping the attention
of Americans.
Rustin remained an activist for peace for
his entire life, visiting countries from Africa to Asia and South America
where he could encourage nonviolent resistance to oppression and colonialism.
He died in 1987 after returning from Haiti.
D'Emilio's lecture convinced me not only
of the convictions and abilities of Rustin, but that the historian sees
Rustin's life worthy of emulation. When the master reality-storyteller
departed Burlington I felt an unanticipated loss. Not only is he a wonderful
fellow with whom to discuss subjects critical to our community, but I
want to go to Chicago next semester where I could take his classes.
For more
information on Bayard Rustin, see Lost Prophet: The Life and Times
of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio (University of Chicago Press).