WEBVTT - REPLAY: An Angelic Troublemaker 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:09.399 It's a hot summer day in August. A crowd of 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:11.880 more than two hundred thousand people is gathered before the 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.880 Lincoln Memorial in Washington, d C. You know the story, 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:21.040 You definitely know the speech. I have a dream. But 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:28.080 one day this nation will rise up, live out the 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.639 true meaning of its screen. But do you know the 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.760 man responsible for putting Martin Luther King Jr. Behind that podium, 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.839 the man who organized the march on Washington. You can 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.680 see him in video footage of the historic moment. He 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.640 is standing on Dr King's right, and you can even 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.440 hear him bellowing his approval when King reaches the end 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.520 of his famous speech, Free at last, Free at last, 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:59.160 Thank God a matter. The man next to Dr King 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.520 is Byard rust As we learned an episode one, Rustin 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.360 first came to King's aid during the Montgomery bus boycott. 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.000 The Quaker activist was King's mentor, and it was Rustin, 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.080 not King, who many fellow activists looked too early on 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:23.039 at the potential father of the civil rights movement. Bayard 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.039 Rustin was a master strategist, a tireless organizer, and an 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.480 outright force of nature in the civil rights movement and 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.759 more than any other person. He was responsible for injecting 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:38.000 non violent protest into the black freedom struggle. So why 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.479 have so many of us never heard of him? Well, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.600 Rustin was not only a black man, he was a 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:47.319 gay man as well, and in twentieth century America, those 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:49.840 two facts would prove too difficult for even a man 0:01:49.920 --> 0:02:00.280 as talented as Rustin to fully overcome. You don't off 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.600 to ride Jim Kow. No, you don't have to ride 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.280 Jim Kroll on June the Third High Court said when 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:11.560 you ride in the state Jim Crow is dead. You 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:16.040 don't have to ride Jim. I'm Sean braswell, and this 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.880 is the thread. This season, we are pulling the thread 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:24.000 on a powerful and revolutionary idea, non violent resistance. An 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.480 episode one, we saw how a young Martin Luther King Jr. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.840 Elevated the U s Civil rights movement using non violence. 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.680 In this episode, we pull back the curtain on Bayard Rustin, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.959 the man who helped King to take up the banner 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.160 of non violence in the first place. Byrd, Rustin's life 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.600 teaches us that sometimes it is the people that we 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.160 don't learn about in history class that make the biggest 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.320 impact on our lives. If you're joining us for the 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.720 first time, we encourage you to go back and listen 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:55.480 to episode one, when United Action turns the tide and 0:02:55.760 --> 0:03:01.519 black and white sit side by side. Oh, someday we 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:09.520 will be. In nineteen fifty six, Martin Luther King Jr. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.280 With the help of Buyard Rustin, unveiled a new weapon 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.280 to combat racial injustice in the United States. For several 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:21.280 weeks now, were the nigrot citizens of Montgomery have been 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:27.320 involved in a non violent protest against the injustices which 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.680 we have experienced on the buses a number of years. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.800 Rust And discussed the effect of the Montgomery boycott in 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.960 a nineteen seventy nine interview. Oh. I think if there 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.360 had been any violence at all, they were prepared to 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.080 deal with that. But they could not deal with were 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.880 people who were not being violent, and there was a 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.360 kind of moral geoujitsu going on, a moral rustling, and 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.880 they didn't know how to put their hands on us 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.600 because it was so intensely non violent. This is Rustin. 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.880 Biographer John demilio I interviewed many of the pacifists who 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.800 worked with Rustin in the nineteen forties and early fifties, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.000 and at some point. In almost every interview I did, 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:19.919 each one of them would say some equivalent to we 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:25.280 thought he would be the American Gandhi. Now think about that, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.440 Think about what that means about how powerful they perceived 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:34.719 Rustin to be as a model of non violent activism. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.960 Every fiber in Rustin's being was dedicated to the principles 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.880 of non violence, and more than any other person, he 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:45.000 was the one responsible for launching King's famous dream. Still, 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:47.840 Rustin makes no more than a cameo appearance in most 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.000 history books about the time. This is civil rights leader 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.440 Timothy Jenkins, who knew Rustin personally. No, I don't think 0:04:54.520 --> 0:05:00.760 that the that the virusors historically fully appreciated for his importance, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.160 and I don't think that he was appreciated fully at 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.320 it when he was alive. Rustin actually had an experience 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.960 similar to Rosa Parks on a segregated bus thirteen years 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.839 before he joined King in Montgomery. John Damilo explains he's 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:20.280 traveling to the South and on a bus in Tennessee. 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.800 He refuses to go to the back and puts himself 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.400 in the front of the bus, where he is sitting 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:34.359 next to white passengers in rows reserved for Whites. The 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.720 bus driver calls the police. Soon rest In here sirens. 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.440 Four police officers board the bus and approach Rustin. He 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.440 patiently explains to them that he has a right to 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.279 sit there. He points to a young white child sitting 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.479 nearby and says that if he moves to the back 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.679 of the bus, he will be quote depriving that child 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.800 of the knowledge that there is an injustice here. The 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.240 officers dragged Rustin from the bus. The police start beating him. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.960 Rustin doesn't defend himself. Rustin, a tall, thirty year old 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.880 black man, extends his arms parallel to the ground. As 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.040 the officers begin to hit him with their clubs. He 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.960 tells them there's no need to beat him. He is 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.839 not resisting. When they take him to the police station, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:21.080 there is more physical assault. The hallway leading to the 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.440 police captain's office is lined with officers on both sides. 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.560 Rustin is tossed from one to another. He endures more blows. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.800 His clothes are ripped, and he doesn't resist. Rustin is 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.880 then taken into the captain's office, where he calmly asks, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.559 what can I do for you? The angry captain leans 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.400 in and yells at Rustin quote, You're supposed to be 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.400 scared when you come in here, but buyared. Rustin wasn't scared. 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:52.599 At times, he was utterly fearless. Rustin's commitment to non 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:58.000 violence was total and complete. It wasn't simply a political 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.159 tactic that he used in a dem instration. It was 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.479 the way he intended to live his life, and he 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:09.000 expected himself too. And there are many instances in Rustin's 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:14.680 life where uh confronted with beatings by police or demonstrators. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.600 He never fought back. Take this incident at a demonstration 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.400 in nineteen one, Rustin was attacked with a stick by 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.480 an angry spectator. He picked up a stick of his own. 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.040 Then he handed his attack or the second stick and 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.560 asked him if he wanted to use both. The disoriented 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.280 man threw the two sticks down and stormed away. Rustin 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.000 explained the logic of his non violent approach in a 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.360 later interview. There are three ways to deal with injustice. 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.800 One is to accept it slavishly, or one can insisted 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.160 with arms, or one can use non violence. The man 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.920 who believes in non violence is prepared to be harmed, 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:04.000 to be crushed, but he will never crush others Rustin 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.600 grew up in Westchester, Pennsylvania, which was very much a 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.360 Quaker town. It had been a stop on the underground 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:15.360 railroad in the nineteenth century. His grandmother, Julia, who raised him, 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:20.880 worked in the households of Quaker families, and so Quakerism 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.800 was a part of his life. Rustin was a good 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.840 athlete and a lover of the arts. He would often 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.920 recite classical poems allowed at school, even while at football practice. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:35.400 In the late nineteen thirties, Rustin moved to New York. 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.959 He attended City College and paid his bills by singing 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:43.520 in Greenwich Village nightclubs. Then he landed his first real job. 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.760 He actually starts working for an organization called the Fellowship 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:54.679 of Reconciliation, which was um a pacifist organization whose membership 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:59.600 was mostly ministers committed to the philosophy and practice of 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.320 non islands. It's not a great time to be a 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.160 pacifist in the United States. The attack on Pearl Harbor 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.800 comes three months later. Most Americans rallied to support the 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:15.160 war effort. Rustin did not. I'm a Quaker, and as 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:20.480 everyone knows, Quakers for three years have on conscientious grounds 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.280 being against participating in the rule, but participation was mandatory, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:31.240 so when he finally received the call uh to military service, 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.560 Rustin had made the decision that he was not going 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:43.000 to cooperate in any way with the military. Rustin was arrested. 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.280 He waived his right to trial, pled guilty, and received 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.120 a three year sentence. He was thirty one years old 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.560 when he entered Ashland Prison in Kentucky. He's classified almost 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:59.680 from the beginning as a notorious offender, which means that 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:05.120 are watching his every move. He's also a black man 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:12.400 in a primarily white movement going to a prison that 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:18.880 is racially segregated, and so Rustin, ever, the activist, is 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:25.840 now in federal prison, but is organizing prisoners to resist segregation. 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.720 Thanks to Rustin, the prison athletic program was soon integrated 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.240 and prisoners were allowed to move between the white and 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.120 colored sections of the prison. But not all of the 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.920 prisoners cared for Rustin's integration efforts. A number of the 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:45.720 prisoners are white Southerners themselves, and at a certain point 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:50.280 one of them is enraged at the way Rustin is 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:55.199 challenging segregation and goes after him with a stick. And 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.160 there are other people around and Rustin just puts his 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:04.400 hands up to try to protect his face from injury, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:09.079 but doesn't resist in any way. When a fellow prisoners 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.800 try to protect him, he tells them no. Rustin's attacker 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:16.680 continued to rain violent blows on him, and again Rustin 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:21.120 calmly responded, you can't hurt me. The other prisoner received 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.760 no punishment for the incident. Rustin was disciplined by the warden. 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.400 His activism had not made him popular with prison officials. 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.320 They soon learned that the formidable organizer had an achilles heel, 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.840 at least given the time in which he lived. Rustin 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.960 is a gay man in an era where no one 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:47.600 accepts being gay, and the prison officials realized that they 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:53.160 can expose his sexuality, and they bring him up on 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:58.240 charges of sexual misconduct. Rustin's integration efforts came to a halt. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.880 They put him in solid Harry confinement. It's a horrendous 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.439 experience for him. There are I found in the archives 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.000 two mug shots of Rustin. The first one, when he 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.960 arrives in prison. He looks so serene, as if you 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:19.640 can't do anything to me. The second one is taken 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:25.320 after he's been in isolation. For several months, and the 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.160 pain in his face is unmistakable. It was not the 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.200 last time in Rustin's life that his sexual orientation would 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:40.320 provoke such a response and derail his career. Buyard Rustin 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.840 was released from prison in nine and at that time 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.800 the U. S. Supreme Court handed down a decision holding 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:52.120 that segregation and interstate transportation was unconstitutional. Here was a 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.839 golden opportunity for Rustin to use non violence to test 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.600 the enforcement of the new law, and they create an 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:03.280 organization called CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality and so, 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.440 nearly fifteen years before the famous Freedom Writers hit the 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.760 road during the nineteen sixties, Rustin helped recruit a team 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.200 of fourteen men, divided equally by race, to ride in 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.360 pairs on buses throughout the South. Other black civil rights leaders, 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.280 including the Inn Double A. C. P, wanted no part 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.480 of the plan. The future Supreme Court Justice Third Good 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:27.680 Marshall told Rustin, you are insane to try this, just dumb. 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.959 Rustin knew the risks. His team endured twelve arrests and 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.480 numerous threats of violence along the way. In North Carolina, 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.000 four of the riders, including Rustin, were dragged from the 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.120 bus and arrested. Rustin would later serve time on a 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.000 chain gang as a result, but the organized acts of 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.520 non cooperation that Rustin and his team engaged in helped 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.599 lay the groundbook for future acts of non violent protests 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.720 during the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties. 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:00.760 The journey was an important experiment um It also in 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:06.480 a sense demonstrated in that the country wasn't yet ready 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.920 or prepared to build a mass movement, and so it 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.400 became an example, a model of what you could do, 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:28.040 even if the impact wasn't dramatic. By the early nineteen fifties, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.200 buyired Rustin was a reformer to be reckoned with, but 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.040 his sexual orientation continued to be a problem in the 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.320 activist community. Rustin never pretended to be a straight man, 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.000 but during the mid twentieth century in the United States, 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.200 it was not safe to come out as a gay one. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.640 One never knows when the homosexual is about. He may 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.200 appear normal, and it may be too late when you 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:53.520 discover he is mentally ill. So keep with your group 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.040 and don't go off alone with strangers unless you have 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:01.080 the permission of your parents or teacher. Every state in 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.960 the nation criminalized homosexual behavior at the time. This is 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:08.400 civil rights leader Timothy Jenkins. Again. One of the things 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:13.320 that he felt he suffered was the double burden, or 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.760 as he sometimes so called it, the double cross of 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:21.000 being black and also being gay, and he appreciated that 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.960 the hostile forces on the question of race were also 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:32.640 hostile on the forces of sexual orientation, and uh he 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.000 felt that he was being discriminated against on both counts. 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.360 Such discrimination made it very difficult to have a social life. 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:44.800 John Damelio again also in those years, if you're gay 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.280 and the gay world is hidden and you're looking to 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.080 meet other gay men, you engage in what was called 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:58.200 at that time street cruising. And rust In, both as 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.040 a gay man and as a black man, was so 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:06.800 susceptible to the police, and a number of times in 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:12.000 the forties he was arrested for street cruising lewd conduct. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.600 Then another incident occurred that would turn Rustin's world upside down. 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:22.520 In nine he's in California giving talks and meeting with 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:27.800 Quaker and Pacifist groups, and in the middle of the night, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.640 the police in Pasadena find him in a parked car 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.480 with two white men and arrest all three of them 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:44.080 for performing lewd acts. Rustin's employers at the Fellowship of 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.520 Reconciliation punished him, so Rustin has let go. This is 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.000 not only a pacifist organization built on certain kinds of 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:56.240 moral principles, but as an organization primarily of ministers, and 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.680 here a key staff person has been arrested and convicted 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.200 of a rals charge. Rust And lost almost everything he had. 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:05.959 The man who had tried so hard to cast himself 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.320 as a principled activist had been branded a sex offender. 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.280 He has to suddenly start strategizing how to be an 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:19.280 activist who remains invisible to the public. It would take 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.680 rust In years to fight his way off the sidelines 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.960 of the civil rights struggle. Then in n he saw 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:32.880 an opportunity to get back in the game. That opportunity 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.560 with the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, a young, dynamic 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.440 preacher named Martin Luther King started to appear on the 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.240 national news. It was clear to many of those in 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.800 the civil rights struggle that the boycott represented a turning point. 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:52.320 As word of the bus boycott travels north. For Rustin, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.840 this is his dream. He's been waiting half of a 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:02.919 lifetime for something like the US to happen instead of 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.040 an action that five people engage in and get arrested 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:12.000 and that's it. A whole community is joining together to 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:18.480 resist racial segregation. Rustin and other Northern Pacifists were worried 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.560 that the black community in Montgomery might resort to violence. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.840 After King's house was bombed, Rustin decided to go to 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.440 Montgomery to lend his support. This is King biographer David 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:35.920 Garrow now in nineteen fifty six. Being an uncloseted homosexual, 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:45.119 especially within Black America, made someone untouchable in many quarters, 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:50.880 and so even though Byared hastens to Montgomery to advise King, 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.600 others in New York are are worried whether those aspects 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:01.600 of Bayard's history might be used a enst him. Rustin, 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.280 who recognized these concerns, kept a low profile. He did 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.040 not go out after dark alone. He often consulted with 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.399 King over the phone. Rustin soon found himself at the 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.879 heart of one of the most significant protests in American history. 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:22.639 Rustin sees his key work as helping to develop doctor 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:28.800 King as a nationally recognized leader. In the years following Montgomery, 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.439 Rustin made himself indispensable to King and to the Civil 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:36.800 rights movement. Rustin remained behind the scenes, but if you 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.159 look closely, you could discern his hand almost everywhere. Rustin 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.159 became an advisor to King. He also introduced King to 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:48.280 Northern activists, labor leaders, and other prominent individuals who became 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:53.719 major financial supporters of the movement. Timothy Jenkins again, I 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:58.560 came to know by Rustin as a voice for passive 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.960 resistance in a very important way, And of course he 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:07.440 inspired much of the leadership that led to the political 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.840 revolution of the South to pursue the course of of 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:16.800 tactics as opposed to just the demonstrations. Rustin fought his 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.199 way back from the margins to shape the principles and 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.439 methods of the civil rights movement. Then came his biggest 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.359 test yet. Up next, the eyes of America and the 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.760 world turned to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:32.160 the summer of nineteen sixty three. The March on Washington 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.520 for Jobs and Freedom is the single most significant demonstration 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.200 in US history, the event that launched Dr King's famous dream. 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.560 The man who organized that march was by Ed Ruston, 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.200 but only after he survived the efforts of some of 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.120 the most powerful men in America to bring the march 0:20:48.200 --> 0:21:13.639 to its knees um. Because of his sexual orientation and 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.000 criminal record, Buyard Rustin tried to coordinate the March on 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:21.560 Washington under the radar. It wasn't easy, and by early August, 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.960 just weeks before the march, his role became more public 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.280 and at one point even the Washington Post, I think, 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:36.320 actually describes him as Mr. March on Washington. And the 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.400 FBI does an investigation. It gathers whatever material it can 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:46.600 find on Rustin, including his arrest in Pasadena on sex charges, 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:51.600 and provides that information to Strom Thurmond, who is a 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:57.640 white segregationist senator from South Carolina. And Thurman gets up 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.479 more than once on the floor of the Senate and 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:07.280 reads into the Congressional record all of this condemning information 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.200 about Rustin. The attack did not have its intended effect. 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.360 Rustin's fellow civil rights leaders leaped to his defense. What's 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:20.959 so important about three in Rustin's life and the history 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:26.080 of non violence is that because the march was so 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:33.280 visible and so important this time, when Rustin is attacked 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:38.760 for his sexuality, all of the organizational leaders come together 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:44.960 and explicitly stand by him and defend him so that 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.320 he doesn't lose his role as organizer of the march 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.119 on Washington. I remember about five thirty in the morning. 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:58.080 I was out on the mall and the press was 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:00.880 surrounding me, and I was saying, Mr Rust and Mr Rust, 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:02.720 and what's happening. You said, we're going to be a 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:06.000 quarter of a million people and are scarcely half doesn't here. 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.040 I remember taking out of my pocket a blank sheet 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.240 of paper and taking my watch out of the other pocket. 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:14.440 I looked at my watching the blank sheet of paper, 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:17.000 and I said, just when everything is going according to 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:20.840 oil And I was terrified that people weren't going to 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.879 show up, but they did. It was an event like 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:28.119 the nation had never witnessed before. The crowd two fifty 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:32.800 thousand people gathered on the mall, and they heard speeches 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:38.920 that were inspiring and sometimes they were rousing speeches as well. 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:48.280 Rusting himself addressed the massive crowd, magine that we have 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:55.960 effective civil rights legislation, no compromise, no Philip Uxter, and 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:00.960 that he didn't plude public accommodation. Din how it's a 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:05.399 greater education f f A PC and the like to vote. 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:10.920 What do you say but of course the main event 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.639 in the final speaker, thanks to Ruston's own plan, was 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:19.040 Martin Luther King. And it's just an astounding success. And 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:23.640 of course it gives Dr King an even more visible 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:27.480 platform to be a national leader. And there was not 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:32.280 a hint of violence anywhere. Rusting himself later summarized it. Now, 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:36.440 the single person was arrested in Washington that day. Now 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:39.199 the single person was drunk that day or picked up 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.240 for drunkenness. There were no major problems of any kind. 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:50.119 The march ended for me when we had finally made 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:54.119 sure we had not left one piece of paper, not 0:24:54.320 --> 0:25:03.600 a cup, nothing, and buy ed. Rustin continued to fight 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.560 for justice in the decades ahead. In the nineteen eighties, 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:08.720 at the end of his life, he turned his attention 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:13.720 to gay rights through it all rest and consistently downplayed himself. Well, 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:16.040 my role was a very simple role. It was a 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:20.280 role of saying that Martin Luther King, I have certain skills. 0:25:21.680 --> 0:25:26.359 I have skills which are good at analyzing problems. I 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:30.560 have skills of the wood and planning and executing. I 0:25:30.640 --> 0:25:34.480 do not consider myself a leader. I consider myself a 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:39.040 spokesman for a given point of view. Barack Obama awarded 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:43.520 Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom in fifty years after 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:46.800 the historic March on Washington. The White House has announced 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.879 it will posthumously award the highest civilian honor in the 0:25:50.000 --> 0:25:52.879 United States, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the trail 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:56.320 blazing civil rights active astpired Rustin. It was a fitting 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:58.240 honor for a man who gave so much to the 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:02.880 cause of freedom, working in the background, away from the headlines, 0:26:04.560 --> 0:26:10.640 Rustin changed life for millions of people. Rustin's own outlook 0:26:10.640 --> 0:26:13.960 and life, however, were largely shaped by another man, one 0:26:14.000 --> 0:26:16.280 that he never met, but who also changed life for 0:26:16.440 --> 0:26:23.840 millions of people on the other side of the globe. 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:28.119 During the nineteen twenties and thirties, the world grew captivated 0:26:28.160 --> 0:26:31.200 by a small man in a loincloth taking on an 0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:35.760 empire in India. It wasn't simply that Gandhi had a 0:26:35.880 --> 0:26:41.000 personal commitment to non violence, but Gandhi was showing, at 0:26:41.080 --> 0:26:48.360 least from a distance, that preaching and practicing non violence 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:53.360 could be a route to massive social change. Gandhi's commitment 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:56.600 and methods were a revelation for Rustin. He began a 0:26:56.640 --> 0:27:00.800 lifelong campaign to introduce Gandhi's non violent tactic into the 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:04.479 struggle for racial justice in the United States. He finally 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:08.680 made it to India UH late forty eight, the very 0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:12.760 beginning of forty nine, and unfortunately, when he finally did 0:27:12.800 --> 0:27:16.879 make the trip, UH Gandhi had already passed away. But 0:27:17.040 --> 0:27:21.000 it was a powerful trip for him, and if anything, 0:27:21.160 --> 0:27:26.240 it increased the attractiveness of non violence as a route 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:32.720 to social change and political activism. Rustin traveled around India 0:27:32.760 --> 0:27:35.439 for almost two months. He returned to the United States 0:27:35.440 --> 0:27:39.200 and continued to preach Gandhian non violence to the black community. 0:27:39.480 --> 0:27:43.359 Rustin liked to tell audiences that fighting injustice required quote 0:27:43.680 --> 0:27:52.040 angelic troublemakers, Our power is in our ability to make 0:27:52.359 --> 0:27:59.320 things unworkable. The only weapon we have is our bodies, 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:05.080 and we need to tuck them in places so wheels 0:28:05.200 --> 0:28:12.639 don't turn. Eight years later, Buyed Rustin, the Ultimate Angelic Troublemaker, 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:15.960 put that principle into action, making sure that the wheels 0:28:15.960 --> 0:28:19.920 did not turn in Montgomery, Alabama. Together, Rustin and Martin 0:28:20.000 --> 0:28:23.399 Luther King Jr. Made things unworkable for those white leaders 0:28:23.440 --> 0:28:26.320 in the South who wished to preserve a segregated society, 0:28:27.320 --> 0:28:30.560 but the true ideological father of King and Rustin's nonviolent 0:28:30.600 --> 0:28:35.080 movement was not Black or even America. In the next episode, 0:28:35.440 --> 0:28:38.280 we journey to India and South Africa to explore the 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:41.880 remarkable life of Mahandas Gandhi, the man who proved that 0:28:42.000 --> 0:28:46.080 non violence could achieve major political reforms and even take 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:51.880 down an entire empire. You don't have to ride him call. No, 0:28:52.360 --> 0:28:56.560 you don't have to ride Jim Call on June the 0:28:56.680 --> 0:28:59.600 Third High Court said, when you ride in the state 0:28:59.680 --> 0:29:02.000 Jim who is dead? You don't know? The threat is 0:29:02.000 --> 0:29:05.600 produced by Libby Coleman, Robert Coulos, Sophia Perpetua, and me 0:29:05.760 --> 0:29:10.280