Council Passes Resolution Supporting Postal Stamp Honoring Martin Luther King Confidante Once Arrested in Pasadena

Jun 25, 2023

One of the key organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, Rustin played a key role in the Civil Rights movement. He was jailed and brutally beaten for refusing to give up his seat on a bus and previously forced to serve on a chain gang after violating racist Jim Crow laws.

"Bayard Rustin was a key architect of the civil rights movement in the 20th Century, but for many years his accomplishments were largely ignored because of his sexuality," said Councilmember Jason Lyon who brought forth the resolution.

"It is gratifying to see that Rustin is beginning to receive the recognition he deserves as a brilliant tactician of social change and one of the great advocates of nonviolent civil disobedience the world has ever known. His many contributions to bettering our country should be honored and commemorated."

In 1947, Rustin was one of the organizers of the first Freedom Rides used to test the 1946 Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel. Participants in the Journey of Reconciliation were arrested several times and Rustin served twenty-two days on a chain gang in North Carolina for violating Jim Crow laws regarding segregated seating on public transportation. The charges were eventually dismissed.

On June 17, 2022, A Chapel Hill Superior Court, with full consent of the state, dismissed the 1947 North Carolina charges against the four Freedom Riders, with members of the exonerees’ families in attendance.

Rustin traveled to India in 1948 to study nonviolent civil resistance under the leaders of the Gandhian movement. In 1951 he formed the committee to Support South African Resistance.

In 1953, Pasadena police arrested Bayard Rustin after he was found having sex with two men in a parked car in Pasadena. He was in town as part of a lecture tour on anti-colonial struggles in West Africa.

Prosecutors charged Rustin with vagrancy after he served 50 days in the L.A. County jail, a common charge levied against LGBTQ people at the time. He was forced to register as a sex offender.

Gov. Gavin Newsom posthumously pardoned him in 2020 and issued an executive order creating what he called a new clemency initiative to identify those who might be eligible for pardons. He died in 1987.

"In California and across the country, many laws have been used as legal tools of oppression, and to stigmatize and punish LGBTQ people and communities and warn others what harm could await them for living authentically," Newsom said in a statement. He thanked those who pushed for Rustin's pardon and encouraged others in similar circumstances "to seek a pardon to right this egregious wrong."

Newsom noted that police and prosecutors nationwide at the time used charges like vagrancy, loitering and sodomy to punish lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people.

The results of Rustin's Pasadena arrest and conviction were painful and swift. He was removed from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace organization.

South Carolina Senator Storm Thurmond read Rustin's entire arrest file into the Congressional record in an effort to discredit the Civil Rights Movement. As a result, several civil rights leaders distanced themselves from Rustin publicly.

Despite that, Rustin continued to be a force in the Civil Rights Movement, In 1956 he began advising Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on nonviolent tactics while King was organizing the Montgomery bus boycott.

The boycott was sparked by Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat in favor of a white passenger.

During that time, Rustin also convinced King to remove armed guards from his home and not carry a gun. According to one historian, when Rustin was visiting King's home with a reporter, the journalist almost sat on a firearm.

In 2013, Rustin was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom," said President Barack Obama. "In awarding the medal, the President said, "For decades, this great leader, often at Dr. King's side, was denied his rightful place in history because he was openly gay."

The Bayard Rustin coalition is asking citizens to send a letter to the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee.

"Now we have the chance to help right this wrong." the letter says. "With this commemorative stamp, we can give Rustin and his legacy the public awareness and recognition they deserve. It's time to honor a true hero of the ongoing fight for civil rights."

A copy of the letter can be found here https://bayardrustincoalition.com/about-bayard/2693-2/

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