Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin

Aug 2003 · Cleis Press Start

About this ebook

In his own voice, the history of the civil right movement told by the black gay adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Bayard Rustin, the famed openly-gay African American organizer, taught Martin Luther King, Jr. strategies of nonviolence during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, thereby launching the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.

Widely acclaimed as a founding father of modern black protest, Rustin reached his pinnacle of notoriety in 1963 as organizer of the March on Washington. Long before the March on Washington and King's ascendance to international prominence, Rustin put his life on the line to challenge racial segregation. His open homosexuality, however, remained a point of contention among black church leaders, with controversy sometimes embroiling even King himself.

Time on Two Crosses showcases the extraordinary career of this black gay civil rights pioneer. Spanning five decades, the book combines classic texts ranging in topic from Gandhi's impact on African Americans, white supremacists in Congress, the antiwar movement, and the assassination of Malcolm X, with never-before published selections on the call for gay rights, Louis Farrakhan, affirmative action, AIDS, and women’s rights.

About the author

Devon Carbado is a professor of Law and African American Studies at UCLA. He is editor of Black Men on Race, Gender and Sexuality (NYU, 1999) and coedtior of the Lambda Literary Award finalist Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual African American Fiction, which has also been nominated for a 2003 ALA Award. Favorite bookstores: Eso Won, Different Light, Book Soup. Donald Weise is coeditor of Black Like Us and The Huey P. Newton Reader (Seven Stories, 2002). Favorite bookstores: Marcus Books, Boadeacia's, Alexander Books, and Modern Times.