Bayard Rustin
If you read my previous post with the Wikipedia survey, you may be curious as to who was Bayard Rustin and why I chose him as one of the notable births.
Here's an excerpt from http://rustin.org/?page_id=2
"A master strategist and tireless activist, Bayard Rustin is best remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. He brought Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement, and helped mold Martin Luther King, Jr. into an international symbol of peace and nonviolence.
Despite these achievements, Rustin was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. Five years in the making and the winner of numerous awards, BROTHER OUTSIDER presents a feature-length documentary portrait, focusing on Rustin’s activism for peace, racial equality, economic justice and human rights."
And a couple excerpts from https://www.buzzfeed.com/steventhrasher/walter-naegle-partner-of-the-late-bayard-rustin-talks-about?utm_term=.nkB8Bvz6Z#.ltYMX0Dkd
"And yet, when the civil rights movement needed a man even his detractors acknowledged was the best organizer in the country - a man who turned out 200,000 people on the Capitol Mall in an orderly fashion when no one ever had before, creating the blueprint for the modern American mass political rally - they turned to Bayard Rustin. By the eve of the march in 1963, Rustin had no less a defender than MLK himself standing up for him.
In 1960, Rustin and MLK were preparing to lead a boycott of blacks outside the Democratic National Convention. This would have deeply embarrassed the leading elected black politician of the day, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell. Powell threatened to spread a rumor that Rustin was having a sexual relationship with King.
King canceled the protest, and Rustin resigned from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference."
"But near the end of the march, Rustin took to the podium for one of its most important, most radical, and least remembered moments. Rustin read aloud the list of the march’s 10 'demands of this revolution,' right before King and Roy Wilkins hand-delivered them to President Kennedy.
With the eighth demand, Rustin called for 'a national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. Government surveys show that anything less than $2 an hour fails to do this.' (A 1963 wage of $2 an hour would equate to $15.27 today. In 2013, the minimum wage is only $7.25, which would have been about 95 cents when Rustin took the mic.)
With the seventh demand, Rustin called for 'a massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers - Negro and white - on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.' (In 2013, 6.6% of white Americans are unemployed, and twice as many black Americans are.)"