Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin (1910-1987), American civil rights activist. Born in Westchester, Pennsylvania, Rustin was active in civil rights and pacifism movements in the early 1940s. He worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights organization, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist group. In 1953 he became executive secretary of another pacifist organization, the War Resisters’ League.

Rustin worked as an assistant to Martin Luther King, Jr., from 1955 to 1960 during the civil rights movement. He was also a close associate of A. Philip Randolph, a black labor leader. Rustin was a chief organizer of the March on Washington in 1963. He was one of the first people to declare publicly that blacks needed to work toward economic equality as well as civil equality. In 1965 Rustin founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute to promote educational, labor, and civil rights reforms. He continued this work until his death in 1987.