Bayard Rustin

I was privileged to be Bayard’s friend for over forty-five years and a colleague for the past twenty-three. I would like to try to give some sense of what made Bayard—not his activities, not his achievements, not his politics—these have all been covered at length in the media, especially since his sudden death.

Bayard was born illegitimate, black, in modest circumstances. He became a communist in the 1930s, then renounced that for pacifism and democratic socialism, was a homo...