Rustin

Check out “Rustin” on Netflix.  It is a film about Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the March On Washington in 1963.  He was not given the credit he deserved at the time because he was gay, but he was the guy most responsible.  You realize how different times were–the March was about Civil Rights, but no women were given a speaking role and gays were strictly off-limits.

I did not attend the March on Washington.  I had purchased my bus ticket and was planning to go down with a group from the Bethlehem NAACP, but my parents were afraid of violence and said I couldn’t go.  I was so angry, but I did what my parents said.

One of the profs on my American Studies team at SJSU told me he attended, but he smoked so much dope that he fell asleep and never heard Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech.  I guess we were both there in spirit.