BAYARD RUSTIN
THE LIFE
Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights. In 1947, Rustin helped to organize the Journey of Reconciliation, the first of the Freedom Rides to test the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel. In 1956 he was asked to advise Martin Luther King Jr. on organizing the public transportation boycott in Montgomery, Alabama known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The following year, Rustin and King began organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Bayard Rustin died on August 24, 1987 and was posthumously awarded honorary membership in Delta Phi Upsilon.