what is interesting is after osama bin laden the first two calls by president obama were first to george walker bush and then to bill clinton because i think he knew these two men had tried to get him and were in a heated different reasons. unable to make it happen or pull it off and i think obama was saying or tipping his hat to our shared mission over three presidencies and it took all three to get it done. .. >> from civil rights leader bayard rustin, organizer of the

1963 march on washington and adviser to martin luther king jr. and an openly gay man. mr. russen's -- rustin's letters cover over 40 years of his life, and the correspondents include eleanor holmes norton and martin luther king jr. this is about an hour, 20 minutes. >> thank you for coming. i, as a lifetime human rights activist, i'm especially excited to be talking about bayard rustin because, um, as you can see in his collective letters and as i'd like to ask michael to talk about, he was really the, the in some ways sole vote in the civil rights movement who really saw a complete set of linkages between all forms of injustice. and, you know, there's a very sad story of the split between civil rights and human rights in the united states that, actually, the schomburg center's

going to be looking at on march 30th which is certainly the subject of a whole other discussion. but it's one of the things that's very inspiring in his story is that he saw so clearly that indignity and injustice against african-americans was connected to the discrimination and the struggles, the discrimination against so many, so many voices. and so i was wondering if you could start off by talking a little bit about what brought you to his story, what are -- and tell us more about him and what makes him so compel being so exciting as a figure. >> sure. first, let me say that it's great to be with all of you, and it's especially great to be near the schomburg archives. i have used the archives so many times. so many be thanks to schomburg archives for assisting me in my research along the way. [applause] >> indeed, i agree. i try to let my projects arrive

organically, one from another. and so early on when i was studying martin luther king jr., there was bayard rustin. and then later when i was studying jackie robinson, there was bayard rustin, and then when i was studying thurgood marshall, the one who was the naacp attorney, there was bayard rustin. and it was pretty easy for me to target him because he was all over the place, and he was such a fascinating character. to me, he's especially fascinating because he brings together so many of my interests. he brings together civil rights, human rights, progressive religion, gay rights, nonviolence and pacifism, and the list goes on. so there we have in one person so many of these rights coming together. and mila's right to note that bayard really saw the linkages between discrimination and prejudice in ways that i think a

lot of other civil rights leaders missed. and he did partly because of who he was. he was somebody who was african-american and openly gay and a pacifist and a socialist with roots in the young communist leg. and, again, the list goes on from there. so he understood the linkages of prejudice and discrimination probably because of his own cultural and sociopolitical identity. >> uh-huh. when, um, when i was looking at after reading this fantastic collection of letters that you have, as i was looking at other information about bayard, i made the mistake of starting with academic sources. and as you know, he isn't well studied compared to so many of the other figures. everyone you just mentioned, the much more household names from the civil rights movement. but then, of course, i went to the right place which was the

children's library in the new york public lie area who i was -- library who mentioned there's a young adult, a children's story, biography of bayard rustin which is pretty recent. and is a really, is a really good story. we were just looking at it before. but in it i found that he has a poem that he wrote in high school where he says i ask of you no shining gold, i seek not epitaph or fame. no monument of stone more -- for me, for man may never speak my name. i thought that was fitting because in a way his story is about not having chosen the spotlight in the movement, having been behind the scenes in so many ways and having been a great leader but not taking the public role that someone like martin luther king took. can you talk a little bit about his role in the movement and maybe how that, how he made those choices about what he wanted his role to be?

>> sure. first, let me say it's great to see bayard in a book for children and youth especially because he felt deeply about children. there's some great pictures of bayard with children, especially refugee children. and there are also some great images of bayard singing with them. so i'm really pleased to see this. and i wasn't aware of the resource as exactly as i could have been before, but i'm going to check it out after i leave here. now, yes, indeed, bayard was not studied for a long time. there's no doubt about that. and a couple reasons, i think, come into play. he did not have a natural base or constituency. so unlike adam clayton powell jr. here of harlem, he didn't have a base of voters to draw from. he didn't have a civil rights organization early on. so he wasn't like roy wilkens of the naacp or thurgood marshall

of the naacp. and he didn't emerge and form an organization early on like martin luther king jr. and the cslc. so -- sclc. so he didn't have those bases to tap into. another reason comes into play, and that is that rustin was openly gay for his era. and for that reason he decided, well, let me be add another point. he was also arrested on charges of lewd vagrancy at different points. so those who were civil rights leaders, as well as bayard himself, chose different times for him to step into the shadows. and he did that sometimes willingly and sometimes not willingly. bayard also, i want to emphasize, was a great speaker. early on he was known for his ability to be a great speaker. and that ability faded into the background as these arrests happened and as people became

concerned about his sexuality tainting the movement, about his arrests tainting the movement and also about his roots in communism tainting tainting thet as well. and so his speaking abilities went to the background, and as that happened, his tactical abilities came to the foreground. and as a tactician, he was behind the scenes, in a sense, directing the players on the stage. and the players were martin luther king jr. and roy wilkens and others. so he was directing them, but he was the man who was behind the scenes, like our technical folks here tonight. >> can you talk us through some of those examples of his brilliance as a tactician? i mean, he was clearly deeply appreciated by the civil rights movement in that way, and then he was sorely missed when he stepped back in part because of concerns about being publicly identified as gay and possibly doing damage to the movement.

martin luther king, for a while, distanced himself from him. but he had, but throughout the book we can see in several different ways, in several different movements we can see his brilliance as a strategist starting from the beginning when he's imprisoned for conscientious objection to world war ii, and he's organizing the prisoners in the prison on to the planning of what was a precursor of the freedom rides ten years before rosa parks, to the planning of the march on washington. can you talk us through some of those, how that's reflected in the letters and how you, how you've, you know, kind of told that story of his -- >> sure. >> -- tactics? >> sure. his tactics, his tactical ability is really present in his prison letters where he's directing his fellow inmates to stand against segregation in federal prison both at ashland and then later at lewis berg. and he maps out careful

strategies. and not only does he do it for his inmates, he does it for the ward there as well, which is excellent. he tells the warden exactly what he's going to do, and then he gets the inmates to do it. and the letters are striking because they go through such detail. his tactical abilities are really evident, you're right. in 1947 when he's directing the journey of reconciliation. and these were really the first be freedom riders. these were the folks, and all of them were male at that point, who decided to test the morgan v. virginia decision that criminalized, that criminalized segregation laws for interstate travelers. and so they tested the supreme court decision by taking a bus trip through the south. and bayard and george houser were really the main strategists there. and the memos they put together are absolutely breathtaking for

their detail and for their concrete, for the concrete ways they directed people at different points. they had everything mapped out carefully. so it's absolutely stunning to me. now, i also want to add that pay yard had -- bayard had thought about marchs on washington long before that 1963 march on washington. indeed, the book includes a long memo -- i think it's 14 pages long -- where bayard was sketching out a march on washington in 1956. that's seven years before the march on washington. now, leading up to that march on washington bayard also organized three separate and successful marchs on washington. he organized the prayer pilgrimage of 1957 which gave king his first national platform. he also organized youth marchs for integrated schools, and that's where jackie robinson, jackie robinson's life converges

with bayard. bayard was smart enough to know that jackie was a really good public figure, and maybe we should get jackie to lead the march, and jackie stepped up to the occasion. but in all these memos you can see bayard's tactical brilliance at work. >> as we turn to looking at some of the letters in particular, can you, can you talk a little bit about your process in finding the letters, deciding between them, um, choosing which ones to spotlight? i mean, the breadth and depth of his correspondence over the 45 years, maybe, that you have documented in the book is extraordinary. how -- tell us about how you did it. >> well, it's tough to pick letters, i'll say that. and at first i wasn't sure whether there would be enough letters for the book. later it became pretty clear to me that i had enough letters for at least several books.

early on after i started getting interested in bayard's life, i decided that i'd better call walter, the executor of the estate of bayard rustin. he's also the one who was bayard's longtime companion the last ten years of his life. and i knew that i needed to talk to walter to see whether i could have permission to reprint and publish these letters in the volume. and walter was so generous and so kind, and he gave permission after a short while. now, picking the letters is not easy. what i wanted to do was sort of show the chronology of his life, but i also wanted to show bayard's personality, and i wanted to show different parts of it. so i wanted to show bayard in his sensitive moment, and i wanted to show bayard in his angry moments. so i wanted to show that part of his personality. i also wanted to show how his politics sort of evolved through the years.

i wanted to show his relationship with his family and his relationship with his political friends and his political enemies. so i had these different criteria in mind. and there were some letters that didn't make it in, some beautiful letters that didn't make it in, unfortunately, but that's the process of trying to whittle down a manuscript. >> when you, can you talk a little bit about the range of people that he corresponded with? >> sure. yeah. bayard wrote to all the major progressives of his era. he wrote to a.j. musty for whom he worked, he wrote to the major politicians of his day. he wrote to kennedy, he wrote to johnson. he wrote to local politicians at times. he wrote to international politicians as well. he had correspondence with people, with african leaders. he had correspondence with civil rights and peace activists across the globe.

any major progressive of the day really you can be sure that they received a letter from bayard at some point in their lives. he was prolific. he really was. and the thing -- what's really interesting about it is he didn't know how to type. [laughter] and coming from the typing generation, i found that especially odd. but he didn't know how to type. in fact, just last week or earlier this week i met somebody who typed letters for bayard, and he would walk around with a manila envelope, she said, and he would have a stack of letters in there. they were short letters, she said, but when she saw them, and she saw them in the in friendship office, it was an office that tried to sponsor civil rights work early on, she volunteered to type his letters. and she did it on sunday mornings because he had so many letters as well. so he would just pull out the letters out of a manila folder

and read them for her, and she would type them. he also dictated a lot of letters. in fact, as his life went on and as he got busier, he dictated most of his letters. but there's some wonderful manuscripts in which he is writing in his low to the line, loopy style that just sort of shows how fluid he was in his personality. i love looking at those letters. i still get excited when i hold a letter that's written by bayard. >> what are some of your favorite letters in the book? >> i have some favorite letters. my favorite letters by bayard have to do with hope. and if you don't mind, mila, maybe i could read one. i have some notes jotted down here. this is my favorite letter about hope, and the context of this is 1969, and bayard is writing a letter to a woman named mary ann greenstone. and she had written bayard about anti-semitism, and she had

complained at the end of her letter about how tired she was in terms of her dealing -- or having to deal with anti-semitip. and bayard writes this. dear mrs. greenstone, i am sympathetic to your point of view, but i am not sympathetic to your cry of being tired. mrs. greenstone, i am 59 years old, i am black, and i have lived with and fought racism my entire life. i have been in prison 23 times serving 28 months in a federal pent ri and 30 days on a north carolina chain gang. i have seen periods of progress followed by reaction. i have seen the hopes and aspirations of negroes rise during world war ii only to be smashed during the eisenhower years. i've seen the victories of the kennedy and johnson administrations destroyed by

richard nixon. i have seen black young people become more and more bitter. i have seen dope addiction rise in the negro communities across the country. i have been in a bombedture -- bombed church. my best friends, my closest associates and my colleagues in arms have been beaten and assassinated. yet to remain human and to fulfill my commitment to a just society, i must continue to fight for the liberation of all. there will be times when each of us will have doubts, but i trust that neither of us will desert our great cause. sincerely, bayard rustin. that, for me, is one of the most moving letters in the book.

he wrote that a little more than a year after the assassination of martin luther king jr. and a little more than a month after king was assassinated, bayard wrote to his p friend, bill sutherland, in africa at the time that he was too discombobulate today write a full letter. that letter to bill sutherland followed bill's letter to bayard in which bill wrote: if you step into martin luther king's shoes, that's one reason that i would come back to america. people thought very highly of bayard, and i think it's partly because he had this steadfast hope. he kept bouncing back after people stamped on him, after they put him in jail, after they cast him into the shadows. he keeps rising again. and this letter gets to the

heart of that steadfast hope that drove bayard so many years of his life. >> it's a wonderful -- >> isn't it? >> -- letter. >> yeah, i think it is too. one of my favorites. >> one of the things i was struck by in the book and in bayard's story is how he drew strength from and rhetorical power from religion and from his quaker faith and from christianity and the ways that he writes about that. and in other parts he uses that in, i think, fairly -- it seems to me fairly self-conscious ways. >> i think so too. bayard is such a political figure, that it's easy to miss his spirituality. but from those early letters on, he constantly appeals to spiritual values. and he does it for a variety of reasons. and one of the reasons is that

he was reared by julia rustin in westchester, pennsylvania. and julia and jennifer are his grandparents. they take him to the local african methodist episcopal church in westchester, and julia was schooled at a quaker school in westchester. her mother had been a domestic in quaker homes, and they insisted on schooling julia in quaker homes and a quaker school. and she takes those quaker values of nonviolence and the unity of the human family and human equality, and she passes those on to bayard very clearly. she also takes the black church values, those ame church values with the emphasis on the great stories from the hebrew scriptures which is the story of the exodus, the story of moses

and god joining together to free the slaves. she passes that story on to bayard as well along with the conviction that you need to free those slaves right here and right now. you don't need to wait physical you get -- until you get to heaven to experience human liberation. you don't need to wait until you get to the by and by in order to experience justice. in fact, you need to do it right now. and so these are the lessons that she passes on to bayard. she also passes on to him a key lesson about his identity. and one of her favorite sections of the bible comes from the psalms. and one of her favorite psalms is from psalm 96 in which the psalmist says that i reside in the shadow of the almighty if i do what is just and right and good. and she takes that lesson, and she passes that on to bayard saying that if you -- it doesn't matter what people will do to you, it doesn't matter whether

they are cast you in the shadows as long as you do what is right and just and good. you will dwell in the shadow of the almighty. and so bayard has confidence in himself, and he also has this clear sense of mission. and that is to make the world a better place. to make it a place of peace and to make it a place of justice. and he takes those convictions from westchester, pennsylvania, into the rest of his life. i hope my answers respect too long. >> no. [laughter] it's great. he is, i, um, you know, i, of course, encourage everyone to read the book. it really is a, um, an extraordinarily rich and deep story about the, um, the extent of his fight and his, um, maintaining his hope through all these challenges that he, um,

that he draws on that strength and that he carries throughout the book. be um, i was wondering if you can talk a little bit about then how that plays out in sort of his last, kind of his last phase after the intensity of his involvement in the civil rights movement, after king's death, um, he has a period where he moves into work in activism on more international issues. he's concerned about the refugees coming from the wars in cambodia and laos and vietnam. he's concerned about the fate of israel, anti-apartheid, he's deeply involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, again, as i would see the connection with human rights, labor rights, anti-colonialism,independence. he's traveling all over the world, um, and he becomes much more of a voice on gay rights. can you talk about sort of the last, maybe the last third of

the book? >> sure, yeah, i can do that. i'll talk a little bit about africa, maybe -- >> yeah. >> -- and then segway into gay rights. bayard was fighting against apartheid as early as 1952. in 1952 the african national congress had developed programs and protests against those apartheid laws that were beginning to emerge more clearly in south africa. and bayard rustin is delighted to see the african national congress do that. and he and george houser at the fellowship for reconciliation -- and at other places as well -- start to work on african liberation. and george houser begins to form a committee that eventually becomes the american committee on africa, and that's really dedicated to fighting colonialism in africa. this is also bayard's, one of bayard's real loves at this

point. he is very concerned about colonialism in africa, and early on -- well, in 1959 he goes to africa and participates in this project called the sahara project. and the point of the saw -- sahara project is to draw the world's attention to france's decision to detonate its first nuclear bomb on african soil. it's crazy. absolutely crazy. bayard knows it's crazy. and he joins his fellow peace activists in developing this plan where they're going to cross the border into the algerian sahara. it's french territory, sort of invade french territory and make their way to the site. they never get to the site. it really wasn't the plan to get to the site. they get turned back constantly. but doing so, they draw the

world's attention to this spectacle and specter of a colonial power planning to detonate its atomic weapons on colonized soil in africa. they don't stop france from doing it. france does it in february of 1960. but bayard and his fellow activists did all they could. bayard is also involved in helping african independence movements stay focused on nonviolence. and so he works with -- [inaudible] for example, in name by ya and keeps his movement focused on nonviolence. now, when africa became colonized, lots of methods were used, and bayard has the idea they should establish a nonviolence center in africa to assist liberation leaders in terms of becoming familiar with gandhi and methods.

he does that for a little while. it doesn't last very long, but he gives it his best effort. bayard's also concerned about refugees as he goes on in his life and, in fact, he's one of the first to call for the opening of borders for vietnamese refugees. he travels across the globe especially with liv baughman and the international refuge committee. i think i got the name right there. and they are making their best plans to assist refugees in their own home countries, but also travel to countries where they can live better lives if they want to do that as well. now, i'll turn to the gay rights movement. do you want me to continue going on? >> please. >> in terms of the gay rights movement, we have to remember that bayard has been scorched for his sexuality countless times in his life, and i'll give you one example, and maybe we can talk about that. 1960, bayard is planning a

demonstration at the democratic national convention for that summer. and representative adam clayton powell jr. of harlem gets wind of this plan. and for a variety of reasons, he decides that he wants to stop the march on the democrats. and so he does it this way, or he tries to do it this way: he has an intermediary call martin luther king who at this point is in south america with a threat, and the threat is this, if you don't call off the march on the democrats, i will go to the media and tell them that you and bayard are having a gay affair. [laughter] i'm still baffled even when i hear myself say that. i once asked walter, bayard's longtime companion, whether there was any truth to the possibility that the two were having a gay affair, and walter

smiled and rolled his eyes and said, please, dr. king was not bayard's type. [laughter] and for those of you who know about dr. king, we can also say that bayard was not dr. king's type. [laughter] but king takes this threat very seriously even though it's hollow. there's nothing to it. he takes it seriously because he's frightened of negative exposure. remember, this is a very homophobic society that we live in in 1960. even today, but especially in 1960, and he's very concerned about the negative exposure at that point. so eventually after several different steps he decides to cut bayard out of his inner circle. and bayard is absolutely crushed. and he goes into a funk. before this in 1959 king had

actually considered giving bayard one of the top positions in the sclc. and king's inner circle advised him not to do so because of the possible negative exposure that might arise because of bayard's gay sexuality and because of his past arrests related to lewd vagrancy. after 1960 bayard eventually gets back into king's inner circle. by 1963 he's strategizing with king about birmingham, and then he becomes that leader of the march on washington. he becomes the de facto director of the march on washington. and just before the march on washington happens, senator strom think monday, do you know him? [laughter] he goes to the well of the senate floor, and he calls bayard a homosexual and a pervert. and the national media latch on to this, and they pummel bayard and civil rights leaders in

common. and be at this point the civil rights leaders stand by bayard's side. and bayard says at this point you need to judge me on my whole character, my whole life. bayard also does not talk openly ant his ga -- about his gay sexuality in the media. he doesn't do that. he's of the school that says at this point that one's sexuality is a private matter. in fact, he writes this in a letter in 1985 to a man who's putting together an anthology of writings by african-american gays. and bayard says that he considered sexual orientation to be a private matter. now, that wasn't exactly true because by the mid 1980s bayard stands up for gay rights and speaks on behalf of gay rights here in new york city, but he does so in part because walter, his longtime companion, had been encouraging him to do

so. bayard really hadn't done so up to that point be, but with walter's nudging, bayard begins to speak out on behalf of gay rights. and, of course, since then the gay rights has really seen bayard as one of their early heroes. and i do want to emphasize, though, that it took a heck of a lot of courage to stand up as an openly gay man and to move in those inner circles of civil rights leaders. especially conservative ministers and people who knew bayard knew that he was a gay man. so i hope that helps answer your question. >> we're going to -- in a minute we're going to open up to questions from everyone. if you have a question, if you could think about starting to move to the mic and address your questions, um, through the microphone. but i'd like to give everyone a minute to think about that and also ask a last question. which is that there's throughout the book and especially starting in the '60s there is a kind of

strand of discussion about bayard's relationship with the democratic party, with partisan politics. he's accused on various sides of being too close to the democrats, of not supporting them enough. and you see a lot of nuances and complexities of left politics in there. >> right. >> i can hear his voice being very consistent on it. given all that what do you think that bayard would say about the

>> he knows that the people who get things done are those on the appropriations committee. he knows that a lot of power can be wielded in executive decisions and executive orders. and so bayard begins to make this move towards politics calling for his activists to take up political leadership.

now, what about president obama? can we say that president obama in the white house is symptomatic of a move from protest to politics? absolutely. i think. would bayard be pleased with president obama's policies? i dare not say. but i do know that in 1966 bayard rustin pushed for what he called a freedom budget for all americans, and this was a budget which i believe was about $186 billion designed to take everybody out of poverty, to give them a guaranteed annual income, to give people universal health care.

to give people full employment. to make the society a just one where distribution of wealth is radical, where the distribution of power is radical. do we see that now? of course not. so i would say that bayard rustin, oh, i'm taking a shot here, would be pleased with some moves but would be bayard. he would stand up and criticize our failure to get to full employment, to universal health care in an affordable way, jobs for everybody, great education for everybody. i think he'd be very unhappy with the return to segregated education. so i think there'd be a lot that bayard would be criticizing today. >> thank you. >> oh, sure, you're welcome. thank you. [applause]

just to reiterate a couple thanks. thanks to walter for making the book possible, thanks to city lights books in san francisco which is a really progressive publisher. and i love publishing with them because they publish in the spirit of bayard. so check them out at citylightbooks.com. and thanks to mila for leading this great discussion. will you join me in thanking her as well? [applause] >> [inaudible] >> the question is whether there nagel is here, and he is. he's to my right about halfway back, and maybe we can see him at some point. but i think we have a question over here. >> yes. >> and if you have a question, i'm going to ask you to get to the mic. >> step to the mic, thank you. >> thank you. and why has not jackie robinson been heralded as a great civil

rights leader? >> that's a good question. >> yeah. that's what i do. >> yeah. you ask good questions? that's your vocation? >> yeah. [laughter] for me, breaking that, quote, color line, unquote, in baseball was something as big as dr. king ever did. >> here here. sure, i'll speak to that. >> so why wasn't he, why has he not been heralded as a great civil rights leader, and why is not his birthday a national holiday in this country? for that reason? >> well, here's my theory. one of the things we do with heroes is freeze them at particular points in their history. and so with jackie robinson we freeze him in 1947 at the beginning of his baseball career

when he's being nonviolent, and he's getting up and wiping the dust off his uniform and just soldiering on. we forget that jackie robinson was a fierce critic of racism and discrimination in the united states beyond the baseball diamond. in fact, he devoted his life after he left baseball to working with the naacp be, to working with martin luther king jr., to working with bayard rustin. bayard knew that jackie was a civil rights leader. so we forgot this part of robinson because we've frozen him, i think, back in 1947. we forget that martin luther king jr. had a nightmare after he gave his "i have a dream" speech. we have frozen king as well in 1963. we forget that shortly after that four little girls were murdered in birmingham. remember? and king began to speak about his nightmare. but we freeze king in 1963.

we freeze bayard, those of us who know about bayard mostly know of bayard in 1963. we forget that in 1966 he's calling for a radical redistribution of wealth and power in the united states. what we do with our heroes is freeze them in the time that is least threatening to us. we forget -- [applause] we forget those radical moments when they are coming into their own as civil rights leaders. and i think that in jackie's case we should not only hook at his time on the -- look at his time on the baseball diamond. he is a great civil rights leader on the baseball diamond, no doubt about it. but after he leaves the baseball diamond, you should hear him rip people to shreds, and i'm talking about politicians, for their discrimination. >> my small criticism, however, of mr. robinson was that he criticized willie mays for not

being as active as he was, not taking into consideration willie mays was not college or is not college educated and not an officer in the military and didn't have jackie's educational background. he could -- are you aware of that? >> i am aware. he found willie mays to be too conservative on civil rights. but also recognized at the same time when mr. mays did speak out on behalf of civil rights, and robinson was grateful for those moments. but it goes to show that civil rights leaders are not monolithic. there are huge differences between jackie robinson and many other civil rights leaders and african-american athletes. there are huge differences between bayard rustin and martin luther king jr. and malcolm x.

he had fierce debates with malcolm x. and, in fact, by 1964 he's refusing to debate malcolm x because he believes that malcolm x has stepped so far out of the mainstream of civil rights leadership. when malcolm started to call for the formation of rifle clubs in 1964, bayard throws his hands up and says that i can't deal with malcolm's demagoguery anymore. i need to focus on something constructive. but your question gets to the, for me, points out a very important fact, and that is that these leaders are not ofne mind. they have different strategies, they have different timings in mind, they have a different seven of purpose as well -- sense of purpose as well. so don't lump them all together. thank you for your question. [applause] >> bayard rustin came to -- [inaudible] in 1947 when i was a freshman

and talked about nonviolence. we stayed up all night afterwards thinking, and i think many of us were altered in our perspective for the rest of our lives. i -- he was the most effective spokesman i ever heard on the subject of nonviolation. i wondered if in the correspondence or otherwise his, what the exchange was between martin luther king and bayard rustin on that subject. and i just, secondly, i would be interested to know where his letters or archives are. >> where bayard's letters are. sure. bayard's letters are deposited primarily at the library of congress, but they're also scattered in various archives across the country. if you go to the new york public library, here's a good plug for the new york public library, go to the schomburg center, their

database, key in bayard rustin, and you'll see his name pop up in archives across the country. but the estate of bayard rustin was smart enough to deposit bayard's papers at the library of congress. better yet, i should say the united states government -- though it had conducted surveillance on bayard rustin -- finally came around to recognizing him as a patriot whose papers deserved to be deposited in the library of congress. now, back to your question about king and bayard and nonviolence. bayard got to montgomery, alabama, near the beginning of the montgomery bus bus boycott n 1956. he's there in february. when he gets there in montgomery, he discovers that there are guns lying around king's house, he discovered that king has armed bodyguards, and he realizes that king is not deeply schooled in ghandian nonviolence and techniques.

and so bayard really begins to school, the intense schooling of dr. king and other civil rights leaders in ghandian nonviolence and techniques. and he drafts papers on this. he drafts essays on this. so he helps school king in this. and king is deeply interested, and he takes up nonviolation not only -- nonviolence not only as a tactic, but also as a way of life partly because of bayard's work early on. now, they always remained nonviolent together. they separated on tactical issues related to nonviolence especially in terms of the vietnam war. early on in 1965 bayard counseled martin luther king jr. to speak out against the vietnam war and king did so in 1965. by the way, so did bayard rustin. he gave a major anti-vietnam

speech in madison square garden. it inspired people. they got up and marched over to the u.n. shortly after that speech. but later on he counsels king not to give a speech that ties the civil rights movement and the peace movement together closely. so he opposes that famous speech that king gave on april 4, 1967, at riverside church here in new york. king opposed that for a variety of reasons. he thought that that would undermine the ability of civil rights leaders to extract victories from the johnson administration for economic justice for african-americans, indeed, for all americans. remember, king is -- i'm sorry, remember, bayard is pushing the freedom budget at this point as well, and he believes that tying these movements together will undermine that freedom budget as well as calls for economic justice. that's part of the story. so they separated tactically at

different points on the issue of nonviolence. thank you. [applause] >> good evening. thank you for being here. >> you're welcome. >> my name is andrew bell, and i'd like to know if you would speak about mr. rustin as a spiritual being. you mentioned his incarcerations, being beaten, colleagues betraying him, colleagues being assassinated. is there any point in his letters where he mentioned his diet? does he stretch, is he a bible reader? what did he do throughout his life to maintain the spiritual center and the nonviolent stance? >> thanks for that question. shortly after he went to jail bayard wrote a letter to his grandmother julia and asked her to read a particular psalm at 1:00 in the afternoon on his birthday.

and so heal said that he would do the same thing -- he also said that he would do the same thing so that they could be together in spirit on his birthday. so at 1:00 on march 17, 1944, bayard sits in jail, and julia rustin sits in her home in westchester, and together they reed a psalm that -- they read a psalm that reads something like this: dear lord, be with me, my enemies trample me. but this i know, that god is with me. what can a mere mortal do to me? throughout his imprisonment he reads the bible closely, and he writes about his readings of scripture, christian scripture and jewish scripture in his letters. and he prays while he's in prison as well.

after one particularly difficult event when he gets thrown into administrative segregation because he is brought up on charges of engaging in sex with other inmates, he turns to the story of the prodigal son. and the story of the prodigal son is basically a story about a young man who squanders his father's inheritance, his wealth, and he hangs out with pigs after he becomes poor, and he decides that he's going to rise again and go back and talk to his father. and seek forgiveness and start a new life. many of you know him as the prodigal son. he's also, for bayard rustin, the good son who came home again, sought forgive 'em, rose again -- forgiveness, rose again and lived a new life. and bayard takes deep spiritual inspiration from that parable. and he returns to that parable several times in his life. so he does have spiritual practices and spiritual

inspiration in prison early on. it seems later in his life he becomes less, what do i want to say, publicly spiritual? he doesn't wear his spirituality on his sleeve, but i chatted via e-mail with walter nagel about this, and he let me know that bayard certainly meditated regularly, he certainly continued to practice the spiritual values that he learned from bayard and from julia and jennifer early on. thanks for your question. he was a deeply spiritual human being, and many people missed that because he was such a political human being at the same time. one other thing i wanted to let you know is he made sure that martin luther king kept his eyes on the prize of spiritual values. there's one speech drafted in part by stanley leveson, it's

where the prayer pilgrimage of 1957 in washington, d.c., and bayard writes martin luther king jr. a letter saying there's not enough spiritual content in this. so he pulls king and other civil rights leaders back to spiritual values. he wants them to stay focused on political tactics, no doubt, but he wants them to remember that they're after a spiritual goal, and that goal pre-exists in their means. so he sees spirituality, these spiritual means and ends as moving back and forth and the goal pre-existing, and the means informing the end. so spirituality is really infused for bayard. it permeates the movement for him. [applause] >> yeah. first, too, i want to thank you for doing the book. the more material means it stays

alive, and it gets reknown by more and more people. i wanted to know in terms of the letters, i read emilio's book, and it's just extraordinary. and it's fascinating sitting here, none of it really captures in a way the being in that moment. i mean, there are parts when i would read that book, i would just cry. i mean, the pressure on him in all the ways his life comes together and having a perspective knowing that much is overwhelming and the spiritual question is important. how do you stay steady in knowing what you know and not just losing it, you know, to just kill people. and he struggled, i mean, some of the parts just in being in prison, and there's a real difference on his faith, and he had to heal from that. in the letters it talks about the letters did not, a lot of letters got lost as well as many that were kept. so i wanted to know, did you draw on new material that didn't exist then? were there more letters found, or, you know, is this, is this some of the same material that

provoided the foundation for -- provided the foundation for that but in actually being able to, you know, read the words and read responses and all of that? >> yes. the references to john demille owe's book which is titled "lost prophet," i encourage you to read it, a great read. it really is. it's the landmark study of bayard's life. and early on i consulted john's work and used that as a guide. and so i used his work to track down letters that are still in existence, but i also went beyond his work and tried to include letters that he did not draw from as well. now, there's overlap in the sense that we both draw from really important letters. but there are also topical letters that he didn't use, and there's material that he used that, clearly, i didn't want use as well. there are missing letters, and one of the missing letters or is from a man named davis platte

who was bayard's lover early on, and he lived around columbia university. and he and bayard wrote some wonderful letters, and those, i think, are really among the most precious in the book. they're also the ones that really revealed bayard's character more than others. and i encourage you to check those out. but some of the letters that davis platte wrote are missing and, oh, it just breaks your heart when you want to read a letter that's referred to in another letter, and you can't find it. now, i will also say that stanley leveson is somebody who worked closely with bayard early on, and stanley leveson, it seems had connections to the communist party. and a lot of the material that he wrote which i believe probably included a lot of letters to bayard because they worked so closely together on civil rights issues was destroyed. it seems that mr. leveson

destroyed a lot of, if not almost all of his letters that he had in this his office before he died. and that is such a shame because the record there must be incredible. i also believe that there are letters that bayard wrote that are still out there that i haven't touched, and i wish i could. i'm still interested in looking at letters that bayard penned or letters that others wrote to bayard. so if you know of them, feel free to send them to me. i am at elizabeth.college, or send them to walter nagel, i'm sure that both of us -- i shouldn't speak for walter. [laughter] but i'm sure that both of us would be more than willing to receive those letters. so i hope that answers part of your question. >> it does. and just one little bit after that. in terms of, um, when martin luther king was assassinated and it was the relationship with the garbage strike and the whole movement in terms of the

economic justice which, um, i know you said the thing about, you know, we get stuck in places, but i think there's a whole corporate, um, a corporate media that wants us to be stuck in a place. >> right. >> and they highlight what we pay attention to. >> right. >> so it is important to pay attention to the other speeches. so as kind of a follow up of what someone asked earlier in terms of your reading, was there any communication in terms of an economic, an economic direction in the conversations between bayard and martin luther king? >> yeah, great question. early on, very early on bayard is encouraging dr. king to see linkages between economic justice and racism. he's doing this in the 1950s. he's also encouraging king very early on before anybody else does so to form alliances with

labor. nobody's encouraging king to focus on economic justice, economic injustice more so than bayard rustin. nobody is encouraging king to form alliances with labor more so than bayard rustin. he does it in the 1950s, he does it in the 1960s. the whole way up. he is the one who introduces dr. king to a. phillip randolph who had an office here in if harlem, who is the founder of the brotherhood of carporters, a great labor laborer. so bayard makes connections for dr. king between labor and this budding civil rights movement. bayard was a fan of dr. king going to stand with the sanitation workers in memphis. and after dr. king was assassinated, bayard is the one who went down and helped that organization to continue on.

he led a memorial martha stood with the sanitation workers as well. so, yes, there are letters in which bayard is encouraging king to strengthen linkages with the lay wore movement -- labor movement, and that is one of the most consistent points in bayard's letters. so thanks for raising that issue. [applause] >> two points. it seems to me that a book on julia, the grandmother, is highly desirable. and her relationship with bayard. and there should be one for young people. possibly. also one for adults. that i don't know. and, two, i'd like to ask if there are any movements toward a public monument to bayard anywhere. >> oh, thank you for your first point.

yeah, i would love to see a book on julia and jennifer. i know that i've emphasized julia rustin tonight, but jennifer sacrificed unbelievably for bayard as well, and there's a beautiful letter in the book that bayard wrote davis platte shortly after jennifer died, and i encourage you to read it. it's a very movement about how jennifer sacrificed and how he and julia had what bayard called a perfect union and how jennifer always took bayard as his own. and that deeply affected bayard. and the letter you can just -- i can just feel the tears through those words. ..

>> they came around. >> thank you westchester. >> mark it down near what is known as brad lidge park. >> arthur highlighting his contributions in the u.s.. i am sorry. ralph fines park. thank you. [applause] >> i wanted to ask a question and bring the evening to close.

it seems to me that one of the most significant developments has been the institution was asian of -- institutionalization of politics of the right that gain the enormous support by way of the civil rights movement. to the degree the civil-rights movement was successful in the 1950s and 1960s, the significant shift in a rights movement in this country, for most of the 20th century with the exception of the 1920s at a slice of woodrow wilson's presidency the country was increasingly moving to the left book ended by theodore roosevelt's progressive politics and culminating in the lyndon baines johnson administration. the question that i have is here is a man who is not only black,

is painted red not as a socialist pink and is gay. he carries the tremendous burden of representing a kind of politics, personal empowerment wedded to social justice that costs people their lives particularly in the south, particularly the height of the mccarthy era which we haven't talked about in this discussion but certainly the letters you pulled together, war and state for politics in action which was committed to and i want to know what might we learn about his life that takes us from the 1940s to the 1980s in terms of

the tremendous shift in the politics of the right and the real tremendous embrace of a kind of politics of resentment in this country and i want to at least offer one contexture will proof for the audience, the trade union movement has its high water market. and it is unionized. here is a source that you recently said, a lot of hopefulness, his optimism for a coalition politics that the way the economic interests of black workers and white workers. a correction to what had failed in the late nineteenth century in the midst of a populist movement at that moment. looking back at the success of

conservatism in the 1970s the trade union movement at 5%, even the possibility for that kind of coalition politics doesn't exist in the way that rustin imagine so what did he get right in the transition? what was he able to do in that transition from 1964 through 1968 into the 70s and 80s that we could recover in a kind of full economic distribution. what lessons we might learn, in gauging the world and engaging this nation that have not fully anticipated the right but he was there to take on as a manifestation. the letter i want to read to you is written in 1978.

summer of 1978 to the stanford economist and what was interesting although the contextual clues don't speak directly. affirmative-action is certainly fitting on the docket of the courts if it hadn't been handed down yet. we already see at least in one major policy choice the retreat of the possibility of equity rather than equality so here he is taking on thomas stole who is credited -- not only discrediting black leadership but saying that the naacp and congressional black caucus are, quote, in hock to george meany and co. as george meany is head of the afl-cio so the collapsing of trade union and civil rights, the part that in his own voice i want to talk about and want you

to respond to in terms of where we are today and the erosion of politics and the success of the right is he says the labor and civil-rights movement in his letter to thomas stole has a commitment to social justice with includes guarantees of fair wages. sacrificing this fundamental guarantee with the unsubstantiated hope of creating millions of low-paid and dignified job strikes me as unrealistic, the solutions that deregulation, the market is the ultimate arbiter of opportunity, quote, if we follow this argument to its logical conclusion that we might best achieve full employment by lowering everyone's wage rate. it seems to me that animates discussion about immigration reform today which is as much about accepting the work of immigrants with no guarantee of basic social benefits.

i have given a lot of -- i wanted to help us navigate their, rustin's way of dealing with this transaction to politics of resentment and what eve is rated the core of what he was attempting to achieve from the 1940s. >> i wish i had a great answer to a great question. i wish i could match it with a great answer. the conservative who has in effect come to later shift the republican party were never too p or to stay away from power. and i believe that the radicals on the left were almost too pure

in their approach and didn't try to gain power as conservatives try to gain power in the republican party so those on the radical left wash their hands of the democratic party rather than trying to take it over as conservative as did the republican party. they resist bayard's party of moving from protest to politics. so the democratic party has never been as leftist as the republican party has been rig i righti rightist, in part because of the failure to see what bayard saw which was the value of having power in order to effect radical change in society.

and so the transition being referred to here partly reflects the failure of the far left to make a grab for power in any sustained way. that is one of the tragedies of modern society. i wish somebody had listened to bayard. i wish those on the radical left had moved from protest to politics and those -- to end that, those radicals would be as vocal and as powerful as those conservatives on the right. we have a major imbalance even to the extent that people in the

democratic party run away from the label of being a liberal. that is radical, right? what we see is part of the failure to he'd bayard's voice when moving into politics, partly. i will stop there. very informed on human-rights and transitions and see if you want to add anything. >> the other thing i see in the message that he sent is the one of coalition politics regardless of the strength of any members of the coalition even taking your point about the decline of the labor movement in terms of the numbers of organized labor in the united states. what i see now is i agree with

you about the lack of a move to power but also the intensity of the fragmentation on the left which represents a complete departure from his direction and the push for coalition politics and the way he invited at himself and that comes through so clearly in his voice. the way he fought on some many fronts and it would be heartbreaking the way the splintering into some many smaller battles and failure to see a larger -- a larger fight. >> absolutely. i agree with that. he expressed frustration with what he called the politics of frustration. that is what he felt on the far left. politics of frustration where people were going their separate ways. there were calling for separatist politics where they

weren't moving toward integration or coalition building. and you referred to the politics -- that has really coming to power and the politics of frustration is going on and splintered away and i would love to see a grab for power. >> i wish i could respond in more detail but that is the best i can give you. >> he did just fine. what new agree? [applause] >> michael long, mila rosenthal, thank you for this wonderful conversation and thank you for coming out tonight. and thank you to c-span for reporting this wonderful discussion. thank you for coming. >> thank you all.

[applause] >> pulitzer prize-winning author david baronas research barack obama and visiting kansas to observe the president's family tree. booktv will give you exclusive pictures and video including the trip to kenya with the offering january of 2010. join us on sunday at 6:00 eastern and 7:30 the same night. your phone calls, e-mails and tweets on booktv. >> what are you reading? booktv wants to know. >> just finished bringing up the bodies. i reread the first of the trilogy that she is going to do on thomas cromwell. i know a lot -- she does a masterful job telling a story that is often told