Bayard Rustin in Civil Rights Movement: Desegregation
Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) was one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an early advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and one of the key organizers of the 1963 March on Washington.
During World War II, Bayard Rustin, along with labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, proposed a March on Washington to protest racial discrimination in the expanding war industries and the military.
The planned march successfully pressured President Franklin Roosevelt to push through some crucial reforms. Later, Rustin and the Committee on Racial Equality (CORE) organized an integrated group of passengers to board buses in protest of noncompliance with a 1946 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on interstate transportation. Rustin also served as a director on the 1963 March on Washington organizing committee.