Now I tried, secondly, to make it clear that in a sense forcing them into that position did not create violence but rather brought already-existing violence to the surface so that they recognized its existence and were able to deal with it. I pointed out that there are many, many times—and this is…
Catalog
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania, where his family was involved in civil rights work. In 1936, he moved to Harlem, New York City, where he earned a living as a nightclub and stage singer. He continued activism for civil rights. In the pacifist groups Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the War Resisters League (WRL), Rustin practiced nonviolence. A member of the Communist Party before 1941, he collaborated with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement in 1941 to press for an end to discrimination in employment. He was a leading activist of the early Civil Rights Movement, helping to initiate a 1947 Freedom Ride to challenge, with civil disobedience, the racial segregation issue related to interstate busing. He recognized Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership, and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to strengthen King's leadership. Rustin promoted the philosophy of nonviolence and the practices of nonviolent resistance, which he had observed while working with Mahatma Gandhi's movement in India, and helped teach Martin Luther King, Jr. about nonviolenc
Many Negroes see mass violence coming. Having lived in a society in which church, school, and home problems have been handled in a violent way, the majority at this point are unable to conceive of a solution by reconciliation and nonviolence. I have seen schoolboys in Arkansas laying away rusty guns…
An increasingly militant group has it in mind to demand now, with violence if necessary, the rights it has long been denied.’ If we must die abroad for democracy we can't have,’ I heard a friend of mine say, 'then we might as well die right here, fighting for our rights.'
When we reached Nashville, a number of policemen were lined up on both sides of the hallway down which I had to pass on my way to the captain's office. They tossed me from one to another like a volleyball. By the time I reached the office, the lining of my best coat was torn, and I was considerably…
‘I believe that I have a right to sit here,’ I said quietly. ‘If I sit in the back of the bus I am depriving that child—' I pointed to a little white child of five or six—‘of the knowledge that there is injustice here, which I believe it is his right to know. It is my sincere conviction that the…