quote:

---

Do any of you know who Bayard Rustin is? If not, you are part of the problem. Long story short, Rustin was a Quaker who became very involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 60's.

Rustin was imprisoned because he refused to serve in World War II, due to his pacifistic beliefs, and was sentence to work in a chain-gang. Ironically, he worked very hard to abolish chain gangs, and succeeded! He also was instrumental in the desegregation of buses, which also earned him jail time. Even more incredible, Rustin was the one who introduced the young Martin Luther King to the idea of Gandhian non-violent resistance. Dr. King was not always this way. Before 1956, Dr. King had guns in his house and armed guards posted at his door. He was 25 at the time and Rustin already had an impressive resume of Civil Right’s work that had begun in 1937.

Rustin was often described by mutual friends of he and Dr. King's as a "bigger brother" figure to the novice Black Rights leader. He advised Dr. King on most of his issues as well as activities, and was probably the most important organizer for the 1963 March on Washington that culminated with Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech.

But if this is all true, why don’t you know who he is? He was a big-time communist, which makes him an asshole. But this isn't the reason you have never heard of him. Despite being one of the biggest organizers of the Civil Rights Movement, Rustin was openly homosexual, and that was a good enough reason to put him in the closet of history. And right before the March on Washington, when then Senator Strom Thurmond and Representative Adam Clayton Powell threatened to accuse Dr. King of having a homosexual affair with Rustin, Martin Luther King officially and publicly severed ties with the man who helped him out through just about every major action he did. So much for "content of character." I guess that wasn't supposed to apply to gays.

In conclusion, Martin Luther King sucks because he is a homophobe. Instead of standing by gays the way he did with Blacks, he took the coward's way out by accepting Rustin's resignation after the march and speech. I guess that makes him selfish too. He was concerned more for his own image than for justice, and proves it when he chooses to aid his own "kind" and ignore the plight of another minority group to which he did not belong.

Asshole.

"The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated."
- Bayard Rustin (1910 - 1987)

---

I read this somewhere.
 

---

Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
 
Edit: Kayla's link has good information on the great men Rustin's own work is credited too. Dag's link has a fascinating discussion of Rustin's heroic support of Israel.

This essay is of the quality of thinking that would condemn Abraham Lincoln for not being as open minded as a modern liberal.

I thought the 7 letter compound word that appears several times in your post is actually an anti-gay slur of sorts. You may want to obfuscate it.

Do you know who Alfred Russel Wallace is? Or Johannes Kepler? Most really great ideas are not the province of one individual's genius. But it is our tendency to want to put one figure at the head of any idea.

[ January 17, 2005, 06:36 PM: Message edited by: mothertree ]
 

---

Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
 
tater, here's a link that might be helpful. It's short and sweet and doesn't look like it's filled with too much revisionist history.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USArustin.htm
 

---

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
 
Who the **** wrote this?

quote:

---

He was a big-time communist, which makes him an asshole.

---

quote:

---

In conclusion, Martin Luther King sucks because he is a homophobe.

---

quote:

---

Rustin was imprisoned because he refused to serve in World War II, due to his pacifistic beliefs, and was sentence to work in a chain-gang. Ironically, he worked very hard to abolish chain gangs, and succeeded!

---

He was sentenced to work in a chain gang as punishment, then worked to abolish the chain gang punishment. Yeah, that's real ironic.

I'm not even going to dignify the rest of it by responding to it.
 

---

Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
 

quote:

---

He was sentenced to work in a chain gang as punishment, then worked to abolish the chain gang punishment. Yeah, that's real ironic. [Roll Eyes]

---

quote:

---

I read this somewhere.

---

quote:

---

If you truly adhere to that standard, then no good human being ever lived prior to this century.

---