I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters

by Bayard Rustin

It is not our people who invented lynching, who have set vicious dogs loose in the streets, who have turned high-power hoses on defenseless women and children. We have not burned buses or led insurrections against federal marshals. We have a long tradition of nonviolence which can only be felt by those who have had it so long visited upon them.

I was especially thankful to you for your conception, planning and brilliant execution of the most successful demonstration of democratic participation our country has ever seen.

I’m sure this “March” experience has been a tremendously worthwhile opportunity to receive and handle power. Something that I’m afraid we pacifists have had little experience in. From all evidences, again, you handle power in a way compatible with the theory and practice of nonviolence.

I want to tell you that I have heard of your one-man demonstrations out there, and if there is anything that I can say, it is only this, “on with the business, daddy.” That is a horrible expression and you will no doubt see so.

R.F.K. said to Marietta Tree, the U.S. delegate to the United Nations and a prominent society figure, ‘So you’re down here for that old black fairy’s anti-Kennedy demonstration?’

Clearly, then, I am not advocating absorption of the Negro’s struggle into liberalism-as-usual. Our allies will be useless if they are not prepared to examine basic problems of automation and a structural unemployment.

In the same Saturday Evening Post article in which Young seemed to diminish Rustin, A. Philip Randolph offered the following vote of confidence: “I’m interested in Bayard having some sort of organizational base. But the labor movement is a little too prosaic for Bayard. He moves too expeditiously, and these people want to sit around in committee and talk about it for a day. We have to invent something for Bayard.”

Love this. Too fast of a mover for many activists

In short, this oath has no serious function other than to create an atmosphere of suspicion and conformity.

The maintenance of law and order are, first of all, not the result of police action but are a byproduct of a just and equitable social and economic order. Where there is justice, order obtains; where there is widespread injustice, disorder is inevitable.

The police ought not to permit such conservative groups to make them the patsies of a society that will not shoulder its responsibilities. Nor should the majority of police in New York City permit their own organization to make them fall guys. Childlike reliance on clubs, blackjacks, pistols, and other elements of force is no substitute for social and economic justice.

If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end. If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood.

are, personally and existentially, a pacifist. But I think you also stand with nonviolence (in the race field) because you know what the Weathermen don’t and what the Panthers are just learning—black kids get killed in gun battles, not cops.

In this bicentennial year, President Ford and other leaders need to understand that social peace in our cities cannot be achieved by capitulating to the opponents of constitutional rights. We need to rededicate ourselves to the original principles of the nation. We must have policies which make it possible for all of our citizens to pursue happiness. We need full employment. We need manpower and job training programs. We need to rebuild our cities. Above all we need real leadership.

Rustin upon learning that he had received an honorary degree from Harvard University. Rustin’s citation stated: “Though the fight is not yet won, his life exemplifies the unflagging struggle for opportunity and justice.”

We would not at this time question these current plans if we were not prepared to offer an alternative.

The dream, honestly

the most impressive person I ever met was A. Philip Randolph. He profoundly influenced my life. His belief in the brotherhood of all people, his commitment to the use of nonviolent methods to achieve social change, and his unwavering support of the democratic process had a tremendous impact not only on my own work, but also on the whole civil rights movement.

We feel that this proposal provides the most effective way for Americans to help the development of democracy in South Africa. There will be no effort to impose American views on the people we will be working with; they will determine what kind of help they desire. This is important since many people in South Africa are wary of people from outside proposing strategies and tactics for them.

This brings me to my questions for you: Why has the Confederate flag achieved a certain degree of popular “respectability”? Has anyone done a scholarly analysis of this symbol?

What can one say, even by way of historical clarification, without being misinterpreted as tarnishing the memory of Martin?

I think the more serious consequences of the event, however, lie in the efforts to “canonize” Martin, the end result being that youngsters will see him as someone more to idolize than to emulate.

But it is also clear that the current South African regime does not respond positively to moral arguments. The fundamental issue here is power. The South Africa government cannot dismantle apartheid and establish a unitary state in which there is “one man, one vote” without totally giving up political power to the black majority.

The second point I wish to make is that my primary concern is not the end of apartheid, but the establishment of democracy.

But in a truly democratic society, apartheid cannot exist.

Those values are based on the concept of a single human family and the belief that all members of that family are equal. Adhering to those values has meant making a stand against injustice, to the best of my ability, whenever and wherever it occurs.

While I have no problem with being publicly identified as homosexual, it would be dishonest of me to present myself as one who was in the forefront of the struggle for gay rights. The credit for that belongs to others. They are the ones who should be in your book.

I cited the major lesson I had learned in fighting for human rights for 50 years for people all over the world. That lesson is simple: no group is ultimately safe from prejudice, bigotry, and harassment so long as any group is subject to special negative treatment.

I categorically can state and history reveals that when laws are amended to provide “legal loopholes” that deny equal protection for any group of citizens, an immediate threat is created for everyone, including those who may think they are forever immune to the consequences of such discrimination. History demonstrates that no group is ultimately safe from prejudice, bigotry, and harassment so long as any group is subject to special negative treatment.

Where political action was not possible, Randolph felt extra-constitutional action was justified. He made it quite clear to me that the only march that he would call following the passage of the civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s would be a march to the ballot box.

In doing so it essentially says that you cannot have both human rights and an economic system which will permit a decent living for all citizens. I do not believe that freedom and economic justice are incompatible.

if there is any lesson that my work with A. Philip Randolph over 30 years taught me, it is this: any enemies of the working class are certainly enemies of Black Americans, who are predominantly workers.

Bayard Rustin is the consummate advisor to the entire civil rights leadership.

Yes, Bayard Rustin, without staff, research assistants, interns, budget, or massive library, was our intellectual bank, our Brookings Institution, an intellectual bank where we all had unlimited accounts, and upon requests for withdrawals, were never told that we were overdrawn.

Archivists and librarians are the unsung superheroes of human history,