Finally, Bayard Rustin, chief organizer of the March on Washington, gets his due in new book and movie

For too many years, Bayard Rustin’s contributions as chief architect of the 1963 March on Washington were mostly tossed aside by history.

No one would forget the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech that day, but few would remember Rustin: the tall, lanky civil rights activist, labor organizer, socialist, and gay pacifist from West Chester, who was responsible for the success of the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.

In August 2013, for the march’s 50th anniversary, President Barack Obama posthumously honored Rustin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rustin died in 1987 at age 75.

“For decades, this great leader, often at Dr. King’s side, was denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay,” Obama said at the time.

Now, 10 years after that White House ceremony, as the 60th anniversary of the march was just celebrated, there is a new, wider spotlight being cast on Rustin’s life and legacy.

A new book of essays, Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics, was released earlier this week. Rustin, a new movie starring Colman Domingo, is set to be released in theaters on Nov. 3, and on Netflix on Nov. 17.

The film was directed by George C. Wolfe, (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company, Higher Ground Productions.

On Saturday, the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton will host a book release, “Celebration and Conversation,” with Michael G. Long, the book’s editor, and four of the other contributing authors.

Tickets, which cost $15, are available at bayardbook.eventbrite.com.

Long is also coauthor of the book for young readers, More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was nominated for a National Book Award this year.

The other authors of Legacy of Protest and Politics expected Saturday are:

“I’m over the moon to be a part of this book,” Seda-Schreiber said. “Bayard has always been a hero of mine.”

Born in 1969 to parents who were active in civil rights protests, Seda-Schreiber was named Robt Martin after Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and King, who were both assassinated in 1968.

A former middle school teacher who taught in East Windsor for 23 years, Seda-Schreiber founded the center five years ago.

“We are a dedicated queer safe space, a community activism hub, and an education bridge for LGBTQIA youth, intersectional families, and marginalized folks across the spectrum of identities of all ages,” he said.

The center is also dedicated to preserving the life and legacy of Rustin as a Black queer pioneer.

To that end, it has also embarked on a new project to build the world’s first dedicated archive of papers and ephemera from Rustin’s life. The project’s announcement just happened to coincide with new interest in Rustin, as shown with the separate book and film projects. The project is being funded in part by a $15,000 grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.

Seda-Schreiber said Rustin was known prior to the 1963 march for speaking “truth to power” in earlier struggles during the 1940s and ‘50s as a labor organizer and pacifist, and was imprisoned for two years for refusing to be drafted during World War II. Some of his pacifist ideas came from his grandmother, who was a Quaker. He also attended the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church, where his grandfather was a member, in West Chester.

A clip from the new Rustin film shows Domingo, as Rustin, making a fiery speech, saying: “They either believe in freedom and justice for all, or they do not.”

“He was excised from the stories told because he was queer and wouldn’t disavow his identity.”

Rustin was living “intersectionality” long before law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term, Seda-Schreiber said. That’s because Rustin was connecting the issue of civil rights with labor rights and economic justice.

After all, he said, the official name of the 1963 march — that drew some 250,000 people — was the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.”

As he read about that history, Seda-Schreiber found that Rustin had been “definitely relegated to a background role. It’s almost hard to find him in any of the pictures form the march itself.”

When discussing historical figures, Seda-Schreiber said, it’s important that we absolutely recognize the wholeness of their identity and the universality of [their causes] and how they really benefited all of us, not just a certain group.”

He said it’s especially important for young people who are seeking a safe space to understand queer identity to know that queer people like Rustin contributed much to society.

“He was lost to history, and he was excised from the stories told because he was queer and wouldn’t disavow his identity,” he said.

“We want to make sure he gets the respect and recognition he deserved.”