continuing into 2023
Do you recognize the people on this page?
These are individuals we should know more about.
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)
Once called "the Socrates of the civil rights movement," Bayard Rustin did not head an organization. He was known as "an intellectual engineer behind the scenes," and the success of the March on Washington was largely due to his planning. Rustin’s activism was rooted in his Quaker upbringing and deep belief in the concept of one human family, with all members of that family being equal. Imprisoned for militant pacifist activities during World War II, he was involved in nearly every major civil rights effort from the 1940s on. In a life filled with causes, Bayard Rustin also led crusades against atomic weapons in France and anti-Semitism in West Germany, and assisted in the independence campaigns of several African nations.
... JFK Library Website
Interested in learning more about Rustin? NYU Press has just released a new book by Michael G. Long - Bayard Rustin: A Life of Protest and Politics. Read the Guardian review HERE.
Barack and Michelle Obama want everyone to learn more about Bayard Rustin. The first feature film of their production company, Higher Ground, is RUSTIN
Opening in theaters November 3
Streaming on Netflix starting on November 17
See the trailer below.
Click above to view Jonathan Capehart and the film's director, George C. Wolfe in conversation. (5:22)
CBS Sunday Morning October 29, 2023
Barack Obama, Eleanor Holmes Norton and others, discussing Bayard Rustin and the film. Click on the photograph below. (9:20)
... more
Premiering at Sundance in 2017, Bayard & Me tells the very personal story of Bayard Rustin and Walter Naegle, his partner in the last ten years of his life.
Interview with Bayard Rustin
Washington University in St.Louis 1979
Note: This video is quite old. Only audio is available until 3:20, then the video appears. Intermittently, there are pauses for buffering. A little patience really pays off; you'll hear Rustin answer questions about civil rights activism, Brown v Board, Black soldiers returning from WW2, his thoughts on John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, his admiration for A. Phillip Randolph, the Washington March, his hopes for the future, and much more.
You can also access the transcript HERE.
We hope you will take a look at Rustin's response to the final question.
Kwame Brathwaite (b. 1939)
Inspired in part by the writings of Marcus Garvey and the teachings of Carlos Cooks, Kwame Brathwaite's (b. 1938, New York, NY) photography created the visual overture for the Black is Beautiful Movement in the late 50's and early 60’s. Brathwaite spread this idea through his writings and photographs, as well as the activities of the two organizations he helped co-found: AJASS (1956) and the Grandassa Models (1962). His career spanning over 6 decades has allowed him to document the intersection of music, fashion, activism and art globally throughout the diaspora.
You can read much more about Kwame Brathwaite in this piece from the New York Times Style Magazine's 2021 Art Issue.
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)
Who knew the great novelist was also quite an amazing photographer?
Click on the photograph (one of his) to learn more.
Be sure to click the article's embedded links to view photographs from Ellison's collaborations with Gordon Parks and the Jeff Wall photograph, also viewable HERE.
This New Yorker review below (November 18, 2019) heralds the publication of Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, written by Kerri Greenidge, historian and assistant professor at Tufts University.
A descendant of the Hemings family of Monticello, Trotter's life is fascinating! He took on Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Marcus Garvey, and even refused to become a member of the NAACP.
A partner in all his activities, his wife Geraldine died from influenza in the 1918 pandemic, leaving him a widower at 46. They had no children.
His life ended on the morning of his 66th birthday when he fell (or jumped) from the roof of the boarding house in Roxbury where he lived after selling his marital home.
Below is a podcast from the organization, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, that discusses Trotter's life, legacy, and determined (but ultimately unsuccessful) effort to stop the release of the notoriously racist 1915 film "Birth of a Nation."
(23:51)
William Monroe Trotter (1872-1934)
A major civil rights activist in the early 20th century, someone we had never heard of ... and he spent his life in Boston!
There is even a William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Dorchester.
Below is a remarkably detailed Trotter biography:
The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at Harvard's Kennedy School launched a two-day celebration on the 150th anniversary of his birth (April 7, 2022).
Read about it in The Crimson (HERE)
