Happy Bayard Rustin Day

[amalnahurriyeh]

Happy MLK, Jr., Day to all and sundry, where ever you are in the world.  I have a warmth for today beyond its literal meaning; it has memories for me.  I was part of an organizing coalition trying to mark the day in my college; it was my first real activist success as a student, and those were few and far between in the work I was doing, so it

Comments

[emily_shore]

Do you know, I have never even heard of Bayard Rustin. Thank you for contributing to my education.

[amalnahurriyeh]

I don't think I would have until grad school if it hadn't been for Out of the Past. I was assigned a bunch of his essays in a class on the sixties. Anyway, he's totally worth knowing.

[dashakay]

Very cool. It's a shame that Rustin isn't better known. Thanks for that wonderful tribute to him.

[amalnahurriyeh]

It's funny, he's not well known until someone wants to, say, rename his high school after him, and then it's all SDSAFSDKJAS A PINKO COMMIE GAY! *sigh*

[scrubschick]

Wow, that was fascinating! Thank you so much for sharing the history. Even though I lived through a lot of that, I was a little white girl in the 'burbs and didn't hear a thing about Ruskin before now. So thank you. More knowledge is always of the good.

Also, thanks for sharing your personal history. I didn't friend you until after your family post so it was lovely to read. Well, except for the whole point of it which was Prop 8 and its ilk. I'm still thoroughly mystified: why the fuck is gay marriage anyone else's business, let alone putting legal roadblocks up? That kind of vicious ignorance just makes me reconsider eugenics... my version of eugenics wherein the terminally stupid are not allowed to reproduce. That would include 90% of politicians and 99% of the religious right. A joke but you get my point.

Thanks again! *hug*

[amalnahurriyeh]

I was a little white girl in the 'burbs and didn't hear a thing about Ruskin before now.

At my grandmother's funeral, my mom and aunts were reminiscing that, during the civil rights movement, my grandma could cut out the pages of Life magazine dealing with the bus boycott and othe protests, and they'd just be *missing,* like she'd expect her kids not to *notice.* But, yeah, I know that feeling of being totally out of the loop to what was going on around me, because of living in a relatively culturally isolated space.

I have many "you are stupid. you don't get to talk anymore" moments. I have a hard time keeping them to myself. :)

[newo_fic]

what a wonderful tribute - definitely something that I didn't know before but I'm glad that I do now. It is unfortunate how individual histories tend to go unrealized, when it takes so many to make a difference.

[amalnahurriyeh]

It is unfortunate how individual histories tend to go unrealized, when it takes so many to make a difference.

This is so true. :)