"Bayard Rustin" (March 17,1912-August 24,1987)

Was American in social movements for civil rights,socialism,pacifism and non-violence,and gay rights.He was born and raised in Pennsylvania where his family was involved in civil rights

work.In 1936, he moved to Harlem,New York City and earned a living as a nightclub and stage singer,and continued activism for civil rights.the pacifist of Reconciliation (FOR),Bayard practiced nonviolence.He was a leading activist of the early 194701955 civil-rights movement,helping to initiate a 1947 Freedom Ride to challenge with civil disobedience racial segregation on interstate busing.He recognized Martin Luther Jr's.leadership;Bayard promoted the philosophy of nonviolence and the nonviolence resistance,which he had observed while working with Gandhi's movement in India.Bayard became a leading strategist of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968.He was chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for jobs and Freedom,which was headed by Asa Philip Randolph,the leading African American labor union president and socialist.Bayard also influenced young

activists,such as Tom Kahn and Stokely Carmichael,in organizations like Congress Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).After the passage of the civil-rights legislation's 0f 1964-65,Bayard focused attention on the economic problems of working-class and unemployed African Americans,suggesting that the civil-rights movement had left its period of "protest"and had entered an era of "politics",in which the African American community had to ally with the labor movement.He became the head of the AFL-CIO's Asa Philip Randolph Institute,which promoted the integration of formerly all-white unions and promoted the unionization of African Americans.Bayard became an honorary chairperson of the Social Party of America in 1972,before it charged its name to Social Democrats,USA (SDUSA);Bayard acted as national chairman of SDUSA during the 1970s.During the 1970s and 1980s,he served on many humanitarian missions,such as aiding refugees from Communist Vietnam and Cambodia.He was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti when he died in 1987.Bayard was a gay man who had been arrested for a homosexual act in 1953.Homosexuality was criminalized in parts of the US. until 2003 and stigmatized through the 1990s.His sexuality,or at least his embarrassingly public criminal charge was criticized by some fellow pacifists and civil-rights leaders.Bayard was attacked as a "pervert"or "immoral influence"by political opponents from segregationists to Black power militants,and from the 1950s-the 1970s.In addition,his pre-1941 Communist Party affiliation when he was a young man was controversial.To avoid such attacks,he served only rarely as a public spokesperson.Bayard usually acted as an influential adviser to civil-rights leaders.In the 1970s,he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes.Throughout the 1970s and 1980s,he worked as a human rights election monitor for Freedom House.He also testified on behalf of New York State's Gay Right Bill.Bayard died of a perforated appendix.He was survived by Walter Naegle,his partner of ten years.