“Bayard Rustin was a troublemaker,” begins this biography of the civil rights leader. Readers soon see that he was making trouble for a good reason: to change the unfair laws and customs that kept Black people from freedom. We see him sharing the dreams of his mentor, A. Philip Randolph, that Black people could learn, live, and work with equality and dignity. Rustin wanted to make change peacefully, though. Inspired by Mohandas Gandhi, another “troublemaker,” Rustin and Randolph envisioned a march on Washington, D.C.
Some White politicians, however, opposed the civil rights movement and attacked Rustin for being gay, among other things. Civil rights leaders worried that these attacks would harm the movement. This was “a time when it was illegal to live and love as he pleased,” the book explains. “But Bayard was proud of who he was—Black, gay, and an activist for peace.”
With the support of John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., Rustin became the main organizer of the march, managing a host of logistical details and educating protestors about nonviolence. The march was a rousing success, lending momentum to the cause and ultimately to “laws that were right and fair.”
An Author’s Note at the end provides additional details of his life, including his early years. A sentence here that tells us he was arrested for “engaging in homosexual behavior” in 1953 feels poorly phrased, however—or at least in need of a note that this language might have been used at the time, but is offensive today.
Other than that (which young readers might not even notice), the text is clear and inspiring. It lacks the lyricism of A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington (which also discusses his childhood and young adulthood in the main text), but presents an informative and intersectional look at the life and significance of this often-forgotten civil rights leader.
