from civil rights leader bayard rustin organizer of the 1963 march on washington, an adviser to dr. martin luther king, jr. and an openly gay man. mr. rustin's letters cover over 40 years of his life and the correspondence include the likes of roy wilkins, eleanor holmes norton, and martin luther king, jr. this isn't our 10 minutes. >> -- this is an hour and 10 minutes. >> i'm excited to be talking about bayard rustin because as you can see in his collected letters, and i would like to ask michael to talk about, he was really the come and summer, the sole voice in the civil rights movement who really saw a complete set of linkages between all forms of injustice. and there's a very sad story of the split between civil rights

and human rights in the united states that actually the schomburg center will be looking at in an upcoming event on march 30 come and the subject of a whole other discussion but it's one of the things that's very inspiring in his stories that he saw so clearly, indignity, injustice against african-americans was connected to the discrimination and the troubles, discrimination against so many voices. and so i was wondering if you'd start off by talking a little bit about what brought you to the story, tell us more about him and what makes him so compelling and 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 new to schaumburg archives. i used the archive archive so many times in so many things to schaumburg archives for assisting in my research along the way. [applause] >> i agree.

>> i try to let my projects arrive organically one from another. so early on when i was studying martin luther king, jr., there was bayard rustin. and later when i was studying jackie robinson, it was bayard rustin. and then we are starting thurgood marshall in the early thurgood marshall, untied but the one the ncaa -- the attorney, and it was pretty easy for me to talk to him because he was all over the place and he was such a fascinating character. to me, he's especially fastening because it brings together so many of my interest. it brings together civil rights, human rights, progressive religion, gay rights, nonviolence and pacifism and list goes on. so there we have in one person so many of these great coming together, and mila is right to know that bayard really saw the

linkages between discrimination and prejudice in ways that 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 antisocialist with roots in the young communist league. and again, the list goes on from there. so he understood the linkages of prejudice and discrimination, partly because of his own cultural and sociopolitical identity. >> when i was looking, after reading this collection of letters that you have them and us looking for 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 a children's library at the new york public library, you mentioned that there's a young adult, a children's store, a biography of bayard rustin which is pretty recent. and is a really good story. we were just looking at it before. but in it i found that he has a poem he wrote in high school where he says i ask of you know shining gold, i seek not at the path or fame, no monument of stone for me, for man need not ever seek my name. and i thought that was fading as in a way that's 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 like the one martin luther king took. can you talk about his role in the movement and maybe how he

made this choice is about what he wanted his role to be? >> sure. first let me say it's good 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 were 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 exactly as it could've been before but i'm going to check it out after i leave here. now, yes, indeed, bayard was not study for a long time. there's no doubt about that. a couple reasons i think come into play. he did not have a natural base for constituency. so unlike -- he did have a base of voters to draw from. he didn't have a civil rights organization early on, and so he

wasn't like roy wilkins 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 sclc. so we didn't have those organizational or bases to tap into. another reason comes into play, that is the rustin was openly gay for his era. and for that reason, he decided well, let me add another point. he was also arrested on charges of lewd vacancy at different points. and so those who were civil rights leaders, as well as bayard himself, chose adjuvant 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 happen and as people became concerned about his sexuality, tainting the movement, about his arrest thinking the movement. and also about his roots in communism tainting the movement as well. and so his speaking abilities went to the background, and as it happened, he is 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 wilkins, and others. so he was directing them, but he was the man who was behind the scenes. like technical folks here tonight. >> can do talk us through some of those examples of his brilliance as a technician? he was clearly a deeply appreciate 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 nk, and possibly doing damage to the movement. martin luther king for a while distanced himself from them. but he had, throughout the book we can see in several giveaways in several different movements we can see his brilliance as a strategist, starting from the beginning when he was imprisoned for not change his objection to world war ii, and he is organizing the prisoners in prison onto the planning of what was the precursor of the friedl gushing freedom rides 10 years before rosa marx, and 10 years before the march on washington. can you walk us through that, how that's reflected in the letters, and how you kind of told that story of his? >> sure. >> tactics. >> sure. is the fact is, his tactical ability was really in his prison letters where he is directing his fellow inmates to stand against segregation in federal

prison, both in action and then later in lewisburg. he maps out careful strategies, and not only does it give it -- as you to a inmates, he doesn't do it for the warden of their as welcome which is actually. he tells the warden exactly what is going to do and then he gets these inmates to do. the letters are really striking because they go through such detail. his tactical abilities are really evident, and you're right, in 1947 when he is directing the journey of reconciliation committee the road the first freedom riders. these were the folks, and all of them were male at that point, who decided to test irene morgan versus 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 him and bayard and george houser were really the main strategists.

antonym as they put together are absolutely breathtaking for the detailed and for the concrete way they directed people in different points. they had everything mapped out carefully. so it's actually stunning to me. i also want to add that bayard had thought about marches on washington long before that 1963 march on washington. indeed, the book includes a long memo, i think it is 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 the march on washington, bayard also organized three separate marches on washington to get organized the prayer pilgrimage of 1957 which team first national buffer. he also organized these platform for integrated schools, and that's where jackie robinson,

jackie robinson -- 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 tend to be look at some of the letters in particular, can you talk a load about your process in finding the letters, guiding between them, choosing which ones to spotlight? i mean, the breadth and depth of his correspondence over the 45 years may be that you have document in this book is extraordinary. tell us about how you did it. >> well, it's tough to pick letters, i'll say that. at first i wasn't sure whether it would be in the 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 i better call the executor of the estate of bayard rustin. is also the one who inspired longtime companion the last 10 years of his life. and i know, i knew that i needed to talk to him to see what i could have permission to reprint and publish these letters in it on. and he was so generous and so kind and he gave permission after a short while. picking the letters is not easy. what i wanted to do is sort of show the chronology of his life but also want to show can't his personnel and emotion should different parts of the. so i wanted to show trained in a sensitive moment i wanted to show bayard in his angry most to someone to show that part of his personality i also want to show how his politics sort of evolved

through the gears. 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 but didn't make it in, some beautiful voters that did make it in unfortunately. but that's the process of trying to whittle down a manuscript. >> can you talk little bit about the range of people that he corresponded with? >> sure. bayard wrote to all the major progresses of these air. he wrote to aj muskie, for whom he worked. he wrote to the major politicians of his day. he wrote to kennedy. he wrote to johnson. hero to local politicians at time, 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, you can be sure that they received a letter from bayard at some point in their lives. he was prolific. he really was the kind of thing, which was interest about is he didn't know how to type. coming from the typing generation, i found that especially odd, but he did know how to tie. in fact, just last week, or earlier this week i met somebody who typed letters for bayard them and you walk around with a vanilla envelope she said, and you have a stack of letters in there. they were short letters, she said, but when she saw them and she saw them in the office that tried to sponsor civil rights worker early on, she volunteered to type his letters. and she did on sunday morning because he had some a letters as well.

so she would just blow the letters in the folder and read them for her and she would type them. she also dictated a lot of letters. in fact, as his life went on and as he got busier, he dictated most of his lives. but for some wonderful manuscripts in which he is writing. ..

>> 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've been in prison 23 times serving 28 months in a federal penitentiary 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 in 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've been in a 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 friend, bill sutherland, and asked at the time that he was too discombobulated to write a full letter. that letter to bill sutherland followed a letter in which bayard wrote, if he stepped into martin luther king's shoes, that's one reason i would come back to america. people thought highly of him, 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 or so many years of his life. >> that's a wonderful letter. >> isn't it? 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, um, 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, in 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 conviction that you need to free those slaves right here and right now. you don't need to wait 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. so these are the lessons that she passes on to bayard. she also passes on to him a key lesson about his unite. his identity. and one of her favorite lessons of the bible comes from one of the psalms, 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, doesn't matter if they will cast you in the shadows as long as you do what is just and right and good. you will dwell in the shadow of the almighty. so bayard has this 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 aren't too long. [laughter] >> no. 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 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. 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 he has a period where he moves in to 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 and becomes much more of a voice on gay rights. can you talk about sort to have last, maybe the last third of the book? >> sure, yeah. i can do that. i'll talk a little bit about africa maybe and then segway into gay rights. bayard was fighting against apartheid as ely as 1952. 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 -- [inaudible] for reconciliation, other places as well, start to work on african rib -- liberation.

their dead candidated to fighting colonialism in africa. this is also one of bayard's real loves at this point. he is very concerned about clone b y'allism in -- colonialism in the 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 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 peac activists in developing this plan where they're going to cross the border into the algerian sahara, 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 that 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 kenneth kundai, for example, in zambia and keeps his movement focused on nonviolence. now, when africa became decolonized and the liberation movements rose, 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 ghandian 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 bowman and the international rescue committee. i think i got the name right there. and they are making their best plans to assist refugees and also travel to countries where they can live better -- do you want me to continue going on, mila? >> please. >> bayard has been scorched for his gay sexuality countless times in his life, and i'll give

you one example, and maybe we can talk about that. 960, 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 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 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 negel, 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 fright beened -- frightened of negative exposure. remember, this is a very homophobic society 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 s 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 rise 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 central eyeing with king -- strategizing with king about birmingham, and then he becomes the de facto director of the march on washington. and just before the march on washington happens, senator strom thurmond -- do you know him? [laughter] he goes to the well of the senate floor, and he calls bayard a homosexual pervert. and the national media latch on

to this, and they pummel bayard and civil rights leaders for comment. and 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 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 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 his longtime companion had been encouraging him to do so. with walter's nudging, bayard begins to speak out on behalf of gay rights. and, of course, since then the gay rights movement has really seen bayard as one of their early heroes. 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. >> uh-huh. 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 ask 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 can 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. i can hear his voice being very consistent on it. given all that, what do you think that bayard would say about the fact that we have an african-american president now, and what do you think he might say about obama's presidency? >> wow, oh. [laughter] be let me approach the question this way n. the mid 1960s, bayard rustin advocated for a move from protest to politics. and he called for his fellow activists to recognize that

sometimes you need to move off the streets and into the quarters of power in order to achieve your big goals. now, for bayard rustin big goals were big, and he's thinking about a massive redistribution of wealth and power. and in order to effectuate that, he believes that civil rights activists should start to work with liberal democrats to take over the democratic party and to drive out the dixiecrats and get some things done. he knows that the people who get things done in terms of moving money are those who are on the appropriations committee. he knows that a lot of power can be wielded inxecuti decisions and executive orders. so bayard begin cans 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. finish to -- to give people full employment. to make this society a just one where distribution of wealth is radical, with 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 everyone. i think he'd be very unhappy with the return to segregated education, for example. 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 negel, bayard's longtime companion 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? mass yeah. >> the question is whether mr. negel 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. and if you have a question, we're 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. [laughter] you ask good questions? that's your vocation? >> yeah. 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. >> 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 hem in 1947 -- him in 1947 at the beginning of his baseball career hen 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, 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 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. if i think that in jack -- and i think that in jackie's case we should not only look at his time on the baseball diamond. he is a great leader on the 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.

>> and 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, 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 were huge differences between jackie robinson and many other civil rights leaders and african-american athletes.

there were 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 of one mind. they have different strategies, they have different timings in mind, they have a different sense of purpose as well. so don't lump them all together. thank you for your questions. [applause]

>> bayard rustin came to -- [inaudible] college in 1947 when i was a freshman and talked about nonviolence. we stayed up all night afterwards tig, and i think many of us -- thinking, and i think many of us were altered in our perspective for the rest of our lives. it was the most effective spokesman i ever heard on the summit of nonviolence. -- subject of nonviolence. i wondered if in the correspondence or otherwise his -- what the exchange was between martin luther king and bayard rustin on that subject. and 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. plug in bayard rustin, key in bayard rustin, and you'll see his name pop up and archived across the country. but the estate of bayard rustin was smart enough to deposit bayard's papers in 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 possibility come ri -- montgomery, alabama, near the beginning of the montgomery bus boycott in '56. he's there in february. when he gets there, he discovers there are guns lying around king's house, king has armed

bodyguards, and he realizes that king is not deeply schooled in ghandian nonviolence and techniques. and so bayard really begins schooling, the intense schooling of dr. king and other civil rights leaders in ghandian and nonviolence techniques. and he drafts papers on this, essays on this. so he helps school king in this. and king is deeply interested, and he takes up 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 this terms of the vietnam -- especially in terms of the vietnam war. early on in 1965, bayard counseled martin luther king jr. to speak out against the war. so did bayard rustin in 1965, he

gave a major anti-vietnam speech. he inspeared people, they got -- 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. and 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. the thought that that would undermine the ability of civil right leaders to extract victories from the johnson administration for economic justice for african-americans, indeed, for all americans. remember, king -- remember, bayard is pushing the freedom budget at this point as well, and he believes that tying those 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 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 of 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 mentions his diet, does he stretch, is he a bible leader? what did he do throughout his life to maintain the spiritual center, the nonviolent stance? >> yeah, 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 he also said that he would doll the same thing -- do the same thing so that together, 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 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? throughthroughout his imprisonme 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 forbe giveness, rose -- forgiveness, rose again and has a new life. and bayard takes deep i said fraition that parable.

and he returns that to 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 negel 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 from jennifer early on. so i do want to emphasize that as well. thanks for your question. he was, i think, a deeply spiritual being, and many people missed that because he was such a political being at the same time. one other thing i want to let you know is that he made sure that martin luther king kept his eyes on the prize of spiritual

values. there's one speech that king has in hand, it's drafted in part by stanley leveson, he's the prayer pilgrimage of 1957 in washington, d.c., and bayard writes king a letter saying there's not enough spiritual content in this. we need to do something about it. 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. and so he sees spirituality, these spir call mean -- spiritual means and ends as moving back and forth and the goal pre-exist anything the means and the means informing in 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 that's out means that it stays alive, and it gets reknown by more and more people. i wanted to know in terms of the letters, i read demilio's book, and it's just extraordinary. it's fascinating sitting here, none of it really captures in a way that 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 the 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 know what you know and not just losing it to kill people. and he struggled in some of the parts, just in being in prison, and then highway he had to -- 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 the many that were kept 6789 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 some of the same material that 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 demilio's book which is titled "lost prophet," it's a great read, it really is. it's the landmark study of bayard's life. and be 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, overlap in the sense that we both draw from really important letters, but there are also topical letters that i draw from that he didn't use, and there's material that he used that, clearly, i didn't use as

well with. there are missing letters, and one of the missing letters is from a man named davis platte who was bayard's lover early on. he and bayard wrote some wonderful letters. and those, i think, are among the most precious in the book. they're also the ones that really reveal 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 let they are'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 if not all of his letters that he had in 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 negel, he lives here in new york city. i shouldn't speak for walter. [laughter] i'm sure both of us would be more than willing to receive those letters. i hope that answers part of your question. >> if it does. and just another one after that.

in terms of when martin luther king was assassinated and it was the relationship with the garbage strike and a whole move in terms of the economic justice which 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, 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? >> 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 harlem, who is the father of the brotherhood of sleeping carporters. a great labor leaderser. -- leader. 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, bayard is encouraging king to strike the linkages with the labor movement. and that is one of the most consistent points in bayard's letters, so thanks for raising that issue. [applause] >> um, two points. it seems to me that a book on julia, the grandmother s 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 relater in the book that -- letter in the book that bayard wrote davis platte shortly after jennifer died, and i encourage you to read it. it's a very moving letter 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 word. so i would love to see a book on their influences and just on their lives. in terms of your second point, wow, i don't know w. walter, can

you yell out anything that you know of? you're talking about a physical -- >> yes. >> -- monument? walter, do you know of anything? >> well, there's high schools named after bayard -- >> yes, thank you. there are some high schools named after bayard. in fact, a high school in westchester where he grew up is named the bayard rustin high school after a bit of a fight. but they came around. thank you, westchester. [laughter] >> there's also a small marker down near -- [inaudible] >> great. and there's a small marker highlighting bayard's contributions near the u.n. in bryant park. i'm, ralph bunch park. thank you, walter. ..

so too did a great episode law rights movement was successful in the 1950's and the 1960's, so to the significant shift and a white movement in this country, far most of the 20th century with the exception of say the 1920s and maybe a slice of woodrow wilson's presidency, the country was increasingly moving to the left book ended by theater roosevelts politics and and and common aiding in lyndon baines johnson administration. so, the question that i have is, here is a man who is not only

black, he is painted red, not as a socialist tank and its. he carries a 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 something that we haven't talked about in this discussion but certainly the letters that you have told together make reference to the cold war. and the stakes for this kind of politics of action that bayard rustin was committed to and i guess i want to no, what might you learn about his life that takes us from the 1940s to the 1980s in terms of that tremendous shift into politics

on the right, and that their real tremendous embrace of a kind of politics of resentment in this country, and i want to at least offer one contextual proof for the audience. the trade union movement, right? it has its high watermark in the 1950's, roughly 35% of the nation's labor force is unionized and this really is the source of, as you just recently said, a lot of bayard rustin's hopefulness, his optimism for a kind of coalition politics that could lead the national economic interest of black workers in white workers, a kind of correction to what had failed in the late 19th century in the midst of the movement of that moment. but looking back at the successes of conservatism or

neoconservatism in the 1970s, the trade union movement is white, 5% today? so, even the possibility for that kind of coalition politics doesn't exist in the way that bayard rustin imagined it so the question is, what did he get right in that transition? what was he able to do in that transition from say 1964 through 1968 into the 70's and 80s that we could recover in a kind of politics of full economic distribution? i am going to close the question which isn't as much a -- but does beg a question about what lessons we might learn about his way of engaging the world and engaging this nation that may not have fully anticipated the right but he certainly was there to take it on in his early manifestation in the letter i want to read to you is written in 1978 to thomas

sowell, the stanford economist and what is interesting although the contextual clues here don't speak i think is directly and i didn't read every letter in the book -- is affirmative action. is certainly sitting on the docket of of the supreme court about these decisions. if it hadn't been handed down by then yet so we are to see the piece and that is one major policy choice, the retreat of the possibility of equity rather than a quality. so here he is taking on thomas sowell and soul is basically not only discrediting black leadership but saying that the naacp and the congressional black caucus inhofe to george meany and company and george meany being the head of the afl-cio at that moment so again it gets a collapsing of trade unionism and civil rights but the part that in his own voice that i want to talk about or i want you to respond to in terms of where we are today in the

erosion of this potential for coalition politics in the success of the right is the way that he defines the civil rights movement and labor movement. he said the labor and civil rights movement in his letter to thomas sowell had a basic commitment to social justice which includes a guarantee of fair wages. to sacrifice this fundamental guarantee would be unsubstantiated hope of creating millions of low-paid undignified jobs strikes me as unrealistic and mr. subtwelve's solution is deregulation laws a fair economics is the arbiter of opportunity in america. quote if we follow professor subtwelve's we might best achieve full appointment -- employment by lowering everyone's wage rates and it seems to me that is a discussion about immigration reform today. which is as much about accepting the work of immigrants with no guarantee of basic social benefits to this nation, so

given a lot of contextualism there but i want to hear you sort of help us navigate bayard rustin's way of dealing with this transition to a politics of resentment and the right that really if this are rated the very core of what he was attempting to achieve from the 1940s until his death. >> i wish i had a great answer. it's a great question. the conservative -- the conservatives who have in effect come into leadership in the republican party were never too pure to stay away from power. and i believe that the radicals on the left were almost too pure in their approach, and so didn't

try to gain power as the conservatives tried to gain power in the republican party. and so those on the radical left sort of washed their hands of the democratic party rather than seeking to take it over as the conservative tried to do so with the republican party. and in this sense that they dismissed bayard's strategy of moving from protest to politics, so the democratic party has never been as leftist as the republican party has been rightist. in part because of that failure to see i believe what bayard saw and that is the value of having power in order to in effect radical change in society.

and so, the transitions that are being referred to here partly reflects the failure of those on the far left to make a grab for power in any sustained way. that is one of the tragedies i believe of modern society. i wish some had listened to bayard. i wish those on the right and left had moved from protest to politics and that those were -- in 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

being a liberal, much less a radical, right? so, i think what we see is partly a failure to see bayard's voice into moving into politics. i guess i will stop there and mila is very informing on human rights in transitions that it been happening in the 20th century if she wants to add anything they're. >> i would say actually the other thing that i see in the the message that he sends us today is the one of coalition politics regardless of the strength that any of the members of the coalition had come even taking your point about the decline of the labor movement in terms of the number of organized labor in the united states. what i see now is, i completely agree with you about the lack of

the move to embrace power but also the intensity of the fragmentation of the left which also is a complete departure from his direction and the strength of his push for coalition politics and the way that he embodied that himself and that comes through so clearly in his voice, in the way that he flawed on so many fronts and saw them all is connected and it was heartbreaking to him. the way that now the splintering into so many different smaller battles and the failure to see a larger, a larger fight and their larger position. >> yeah absolutely i agree with that. he expressed frustration with what he called a politics of frustration and that is what he saw on the far left, politics of frustration where people were going their separate ways. they were calling for separateness politics, where

they weren't moving toward integration, where they weren't moving towards coalition building. and you referred to the politics of resentment. that has really come into power, and the politics of frustration is going on and it has splintered away and it's very frightening i believe. i would love to see a grab for power. i wish i could respond to in more detail but i think that is some of the best i can get the. >> i think you did just fine. wouldn't you agree? [applause] michael long, mila rosenthal thank you very much for this wonderful conversation and thank you all for coming out tonight and thank you to c-span for being here this evening to record this wonderful discussion. thank you again for coming to the schomberg center. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> so the crisis, they say it happens slowly and then quickly and that was absolutely the case at wamu. it began to get very bad. all of their issues internally, their internal controls had just fallen apart. at one point they were making mortgages on 12 different systems. they had grown so fast that there was just no control internal it. their mortgage division had ballooned out of control. they had this massive trading debt. they had turned into not a mortgage lender as they were only 15 years earlier when lee was there but almost a mortgage middleman in which they were up mortgages and spitting them out and making a lot of money in between. so all of this -- they had turned into just as housing prices have been going up astronomically every year began to crash, ral