The march was also based on the principle of majoritarianism, which Rustin supported as a democratic principle and a practical strategy for racial minorities. The Great March was based on the principle that freedom, as Rustin knew, was not given but had to be seized by the oppressed. Nonviolence was an active tool for mass movement, grassroots action through which people liberated themselves. While Rustin believed in nonviolence, he did not believe that meant passivity. The march, whose 50 th anniversary was marked in August, represents a fulfillment of the Randolph/Rustin vision. At the time, the march was the largest demonstration in American history and it helped generate the political momentum for passage of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Randolph was also considered the father of the modern civil rights movement.
#MEDAL OF FREEDOM FULL#
Rustin’s extraordinary organizing abilities were in full display in 1963 when, in a few months, he organized the 250,000-person-strong March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, initiated by his mentor, the great African-American labor leader, A. In 1957, Rustin played a major role in organizing King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization of southern Black pastors pressing for civil rights. on the full meaning of Gandhi’s pacifism, which barred the use of violence even in self-defense, something King came to famously and effectively embrace.Īfter the boycott’s triumph, Rustin convinced King to bring his civil rights struggle to the entire South. Rustin directly applied what he learned when he went south in 1955 during the Montgomery Bus Boycott against segregated seating. Understanding that striving for freedom was a global struggle, Rustin visited India in the 1940s to learn more about Mahatma Gandhi’s principles and his anti-colonial movement. He wrote an absorbing account of his experience that became part of a successful campaign to abolish the state’s chain gangs, but not before he made the chain gang he labored in more humane before he left it. He was arrested-one among the more than 20 times he was incarcerated for his civil rights activities-and spent 22 days on a North Carolina chain gang for participating in those rides. He was a fearless activist, an elegant writer, an astute thinker, a galvanizing speaker, a master strategist, a great organizer, and a mentor and friend.Ĭonsider this: In 1947, Rustin helped organize the first freedom rides for the cause of racial integration. While the achievements of fellow recipients are related to the expansion of liberty in its broadest sense, this high honor fits Rustin to a tee.īeginning in the early 1940s, Rustin devoted his life and vast array of talents to the advancement of democracy and individual rights for all, at home and abroad. In August, President Obama chose civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to posthumously receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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