He was close to Ella Baker and with her, co-founded In Friendship, a New York-based organization to support local southern leaders being battered by economic reprisal as they struggled against segregation and fought for voting rights. a deeper understanding of of nonviolence as a way of life, as well as a political tool. Nonetheless, Rustin was important to the early development of SCLC, going to Montgomery, Alabama in February 1956 to instill in Martin Luther King Jr. “My activism did not spring from being black,” he explained, “Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values instilled in me by the grandparents who reared me.” Rustin fought against the system of racial inequality that undermined the “oneness of the human family.” As an openly-gay Black pacifist, discriminated against by American society, he had to fight against marginalization within various civil rights organizations as well. Bayard Rustin and Cleveland Robinson at March on Washington, August 7, 1963, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, LOCīayard Rustin, a nonviolent activist for peace and integration, inspired critical debates within SNCC.
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