Who is Bayard Rustin is an understandable question for someone who has not studied the radical movements of the mid-twentieth century. Once you start studying though his name will pop up. It does not make a difference what movement you are studying, peace, civil rights, or labor his name will come up. Jervis Anderson’s [Bayard Rustin: Troubles I’ve Seen] Explains the roles Rustin played, helping James Farmer organize during the founding of the Congress of Racal Equality (CORE), teaching Martin Luther King the finer points of Ghandian non-violence, organizing the 1963 March on Washington, mentoring Stokely Carmichael, marching in Africa to stop nuclear testing and working with African leaders to build democracies’.
Andersen tells the story of a fascinating man who worked most often just off stage, acting as the leader’s right hand man. Rustin was a living contradiction, son of a young, unmarried girl, abandoned by his father he nonetheless grew up knowing in a close family. He was a pacifist Quaker who campaigned for arming Israel. He was openly homosexual but managed to work with the highest ranks of several religious based organizations. I could go on.
My only problem with the book is the organization. I expect a biography to follow a person’s life. With Rustin’s career that would have meant wondering between causes. Anderson chose to try to keep the causes together and wonder back and forth through Rustin’s life. His way works but I found it confusing to suddenly have the narrative jump ten years into the past.
Overall I think that this book is a great way to learn how the various causes of the twentieth century are interconnected and often co-operative. ( )