1968/2008

UChicago Students for a Democratic Society and the Platypus Affiliated
Society present a film screening-discussion:

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003)

with John D’Emilio, author of Lost Prophet: the life and times of Bayard
Rustin

Come discuss with members of the UChicago SDS issues and tasks for
political organizing today in light of the paths not taken after the Civil
Rights movement of the 1950s-60s.

Co-sponsored by UChicago Queers & Associates, the Center for Gender Studies

About Bayard Rustin and the film Brother Outsider:

A master strategist and tireless activist, Bayard Rustin is best
remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the
largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. He brought
Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement, and
helped mold Martin Luther King, Jr. into an international symbol of peace
and nonviolence.

Despite these achievements, Rustin was silenced, threatened, arrested,
beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely
because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. Five years
in the making and the winner of numerous awards, BROTHER OUTSIDER presents
a feature-length documentary portrait, focusing on Rustin’s activism for
peace, racial equality, economic justice and human rights.

Today, the United States is still struggling with many of the issues
Bayard Rustin sought to change during his long, illustrious career. His
focus on civil and economic rights and his belief in peace, human rights
and the dignity of all people remain as relevant today as they were in the
1950s and 60s.

Rustin’s biography is particularly important for lesbian and gay
Americans, highlighting the major contributions of a gay man to ending
official segregation in America. Rustin stands at the confluence of the
great struggles for civil, legal and human rights by African-Americans and
lesbian and gay Americans. In a nation still torn by racial hatred and
violence, bigotry against homosexuals, and extraordinary divides between
rich and poor, his eloquent voice is needed today.

Young Rustin: In February 1956, when Bayard Rustin arrived in Montgomery
to assist with the nascent bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr. had not
personally embraced nonviolence. In fact, there were guns inside King’
house, and armed guards posted at his doors. Rustin persuaded boycott
leaders to adopt complete nonviolence, teaching them Gandhian nonviolent
direct protest.

Apart from his career as an activist, Rustin the man was also fun-loving,
mischievous, artistic, gifted with a fine singing voice, and known as an
art collector who sometimes found museum-quality pieces in New York City
trash. Historian John D’Emilio calls Rustin the “lost prophet” of the
civil rights movement.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/brotheroutsider/index.html

http://platypus.uchicago.edu