"Rustin," a new film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, tells of a marginalized figure who helped change society: Strategist Bayard Rustin, a pacifist and gay Black man, who organized the groundbreaking 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
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Barack Obama on restoring the memory of American hero Bayard Rustin
At the end of the march, Rustin read a list of demands, including for effective civil rights legislation. But who remembers? Today, it's as if his name has been erased. "Everybody needs to know who this man is," said director George C. Wolfe. "He should be taught in every school."
Wolfe described Rustin as "an American hero, who not only contributed heavily to one of the most significant peaceful demonstrations that has ever happened in this country, but a man who also wrote the book on how to stage such an event."
Asked to describe the day of the march, Norton replied, "It was the most gratifying day I can ever remember. Without him, there wouldn't have been the march. Without the march, there wouldn't have been the movement. Without the movement, you wouldn't have had the '64 Civil Rights Act, the '65 Voting Rights Act."
