Disrupters & Interlopers: Bayard Rustin

The Disrupters & Interlopers series highlights lesser-known individuals from Southern history whose actions, though unpopular or difficult, contributed to changing the old status quo. There is one clear and unequivocal reason that you may not have heard of Bayard Rustin: he was gay. Though Rustin was active in the Civil Rights movement well before Martin Luther King, Jr. was around, he was often shuffled out of the limelight by his own co-workers. In the 1977 book My Soul is Rested, Howell Raines described Rustin this way: “He is white-haired, a… Read more Disrupters & Interlopers: Bayard Rustin →