Centenial of Bayard Rustin, the most important civil rights leader you may never have heard of!

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March 17, 2012

Bayard Rustin, strategist for Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bayard Rustin would have been 100 years old today. An award-winning movie, Brother Outsider, is touring the country in celebration.

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.

Learn more about Rustin.

Bernard Lafayette is another unsung activist.

Discover more hidden Black history in our breaking news archive.

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