On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That day, nearly a quarter million people gathered on the national mall to demand an end to the discrimination, segregation, violence, and economic exclusion black people still faced across the United States. None of it would have been possible without the march’s chief organizer – a man named Bayard Rustin.
Pada 28 Agustus 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. menyampaikan pidato "Saya Punya Mimpi" dalam Gerakan Washington tentang Pekerjaan dan Kebebasan. Pada hari itu, hampir seperempat juta orang berkumpul di lapangan nasional untuk menuntut diakhirinya diskriminasi, segragasi, kekerasan, dan pengucilan ekonomi terhadap ras kulit hitam di seluruh Amerika Serikat. Hal tersebut mustahil terjadi tanpa ketua penyelenggara gerakan – pria bernama Bayard Rustin.
Rustin grew up in a Quaker household, and began peacefully protesting racial segregation in high school. He remained committed to pacifism throughout his life, and was jailed in 1944 as a conscientious objector to World War II. During his two-year imprisonment, he protested the segregated facilities from within.
Rustin tumbuh di keluarga Quaker, dan mulai memprotes dengan damai segregasi ras di sekolah menengah. Dia tetap berpegang pada pasivisme sepanjang hidupnya, dan dipenjara tahun 1944 sebagai penentang Perang Dunia II sejati. Selama dua tahun masa penjaranya, dia memprotes dari dalam sel tentang pemisahan fasilitas
Wherever Rustin went, he organized and advocated, and was constantly attuned to the methods, groups, and people who could help further messages of equality. He joined the Communist Party when black American’s civil rights were one of its priorities, but soon became disillusioned by the party’s authoritarian leanings and left. In 1948, he traveled to India to learn the peaceful resistance strategies of the recently assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. He returned to the United States armed with strategies for peaceful protest, including civil disobedience.
Ke mana pun Rustin pergi, dia mengatur dan mendukung, serta terus berkutat dengan metode, kelompok, dan masyarakat yang dapat menyebarkan pesan kesetaraan. Dia ikut serta Partai Komunis ketika hak-hak orang hitam Amerika menjadi prioritasnya, tapi tak lama ia kecewa karena kecenderungan otoriter partai dan keluar. Pada 1948, dia pergi ke India untuk belajar strategi perlawanan damai yang dipelopori oleh Mahatma Gandhi yang baru saja dibunuh. Dia kembali ke Amerika Serikat terbekali dengan strategi protes damai, termasuk pembangkangan sipil.
He began to work with Martin Luther King Jr in 1955, and shared these ideas with him. As King’s prominence increased, Rustin became his main advisor, as well as a key strategist in the broader civil rights movement. He brought his organizing expertise to the 1956 bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama —in fact, he had organized and participated in a transportation protest that helped inspire the boycotts almost a decade before.
Dia memulai bekerja sama dengan Martin Luther King Jr. pada 1955 dan bertukar pikiran dengannya. Saat ketenaran King meningkat, Rustin menjadi penasihat umumnya, sebagai kunci strategis dalam perluasan pergerakan hak-hak sipil. Dia menggunakan keahliannya dalam pemboikotan bus di Montmogomery, Alabama tahun 1956 —bahkan, dia mengatur dan berpartisipasi dalam protes transportasi yang menginspirasi pemboikotan hampir satu dekade sebelumnya.
His largest-scale organizing project came in 1963, when he led the planning for the national march on Washington. The possibility of riots that could injure marchers and undermine their message of peaceful protest was a huge concern. Rustin not only worked with the DC police and hospitals to prepare, but organized and trained a volunteer force of 2,000 security marshals. In spite of his deft management, some of the other organizers did not want Rustin to march in front with other leaders from the south, because of his homosexuality.
Proyek pengorganisiran terbesarnya dimulai pada 1963 ketika dia memimpin rencana gerakan nasional di Washington Kemungkinan adanya kericuhan yang membahayakan demostran dan mengacaukan pesan protes damai adalah sesuatu yang ia khawatirkan. Rustin tidak hanya berkerja sama dengan polisi DC dan rumah sakit, tapi juga mengatur dan melatih sukarelawan bersama 2000 petugas keamanan. Terlepas dari kelihaian manajemennya, beberapa pengurus tidak ingin Rustin berbaris di depan dengan para pemimpin dari selatan karena homoseksualitasnya.
Despite these slights, Rustin maintained his focus, and on the day of the march he delivered the marchers' demands in a speech directed at President John F. Kennedy. The march itself proceeded smoothly, without any violence. It has been credited with helping pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices.
Meskipun dia dihina, Rustin tetap berfokus, dan pada saat gerakan dilakukan, dia memenuhi tuntutan demostran yang diarahkan pada Presiden John F. Kennedy. Gerakan itu sendiri berjalan sukses, tanpa kekerasan. Gerakan ini dianggap berjasa meloloskan Undang-Undang Hak Sipil tahun 1964 yang menghentikan segregasi di tempat umum dan melarang diskriminasi kerja, dan Undang-Undang Hak Pilih tahun 1965, yang melarang praktik pemungutan suara secara diskriminatif.
In spite of his decades of service, Rustin’s positions on certain political issues were unpopular among his peers. Some thought he wasn’t critical enough of the Vietnam War, or that he was too eager to collaborate with the political establishment including the president and congress. Others were uncomfortable with his former communist affiliation. But ultimately, both his belief in collaboration with the government and his membership to the communist party had been driven by his desire to maximize tangible gains in liberties for black Americans, and to do so as quickly as possible.
Terlepas dari pengabdiannya, posisi Rustin tidak populer dalam isu politik tertentu di antara sesamanya. Beberapa berpikir dia kurang kritis terhadap perang Vietnam, atau dia terlalu berhasrat bekerja sama dengan lembaga politik termasuk Presiden dan Kongres. Yang lain merasa tidak nyaman dengan bekas afiliasi komunisnya, tetapi akhirnya, Baik kerja samanya dengan pemerintah, dan keanggotaanya dalam partai komunis didorong oleh keinginannya untuk mencapai hasil nyata bagi kebebasan kulit hitam Amerika dan melakukannya secepat mungkin.
Rustin was passed over for several influential roles in the 1960s and 70s, but he never stopped his activism. In the 1980s, he publicly came out as gay, and was instrumental in drawing attention to the AIDS crisis until his death in 1987. In 2013, fifty years after the March On Washington, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, praising Rustin’s “march towards true equality, no matter who we are or who we love.”
Rustin terus menjalani peran berpengaruh di era 1960an dan 1970an, dan terus aktif berkegiatan. Pada 1980an, dia terang-terangan mengakui dia gay dan berperan dalam menaruh perhatian pada krisis AIDS sampai kematiannya pada tahun 1987. Tahun 2013, lima puluh tahun setelah Gerakan di Washington, Presiden Barack Obama secara anumerta menganugerahi Rustin Medali Kebebasan Presiden, memuji "gerakan kesetaraan sejati, tidak peduli siapa kita atau siapa yang kita cintai."