Talk:Bayard Rustin

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Removing "Films" section

I just removed the following section which was contributed by a California Newsreel IP address. The video may be good and interesting and all, but I haven't seen it to know. I ask someone without a conflict of interest to decide whether and how it should be included in the page.

I am not without interest, as I work for California Newsreel. But I will point out that the film won the 2004 American Library Association Notable Video Award (which is a big deal), as well as the 2003 Cine Golden Eagle Award. It is a very popular academic resource that most University Libraries have purchased.

Films

• Documentary: "Brother Outsider: the Life of Bayard Rustin" distributed by California Newsreel

No mention of the fact that he was chairman of the SD USA? Even if he didn't take an actively role in the organization he was their official leader. That should get a mention.

Black Nationalism

I don't understand how the Communist Party USA's endorsement for black nationalism relates to Bayard Rustin, or why it is implied Rustin was disillusioned with it. From what I can find out, it was Lenin (not Stalin) who in 1921 directed the Communist Party to recruit black Americans as the group he saw as the most oppressed members of the US proletariat. At this time Rustin would have been 9 years old. The party did so, and in the 1920s there was a very active Communist movement among black American Communist sharecropper organizers, particularly in Alabama. Around 1925, a group of black CPUSA members went to Moscow to study, and among them was Harry Haywood. Haywood came up with the idea that African Americans in the so-called black belt of the US, where most were located at that time, were the equivalent of an oppressed colonial nation and ought to be given the right of self-determination to form their own country in keeping with the Party's official anti-Imperialist stance. Haywood

. . . further developed the thesis on the Black Belt Republic and called for the establishment of the Republic in a detailed “Resolution on the Negro Question,” which he submitted to the Sixth Congress of Communist International (COMINTERN) of 1928. The resolution condemned racism within the Communist Party of America, acknowledged that many whites would live as citizens in the Black Belt Republic, and pointed out the unionizing needed in the Black Belt would be primarily of agricultural workers, who made up 75% of the black population in the south." Foster, "Black Belt Republic" (1928-1934) in the website Black Past

Haywood's resolution persuaded Stalin, who officially endorsed the policy, but the idea was controversial, especially since after the great Mississippi Flood of 1927 African Americans began migrating north in greater and greater numbers. In 1934 the CPUSA formally abandoned it. At this point Rustin would have been 14. So unless Rustin had been a black nationalist from ages nine through 14, I fail to see what relevance it has to his ideas. As far as I can deduce he was always a Democratic Socialist who embraced non-violence. But you might say that during the 1930s he was a member of the Popular Front, during which, until 1939, the Socialists and the Communist were aligned on most matters.

The reference appended to the statement that Rustin was disillusioned with the Communist Party's abandonment of civil rights in 1941 until the end of WW2 is a lengthy proclamation in favor of entering into the war by then-Communist Party head Earl Browder and doesn't mention abandoning of civil rights, as far as I could tell. They may well have, but this reference, which has no page number doesn't show it. I believe that the CIO and other unions were persuaded to call a halt to strikes during the war years and this upset some leftists, perhaps this is what is being referred to. I am going to remove this footnote. Mballen (talk) 04:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC) Correction; The reference is to Harry Haywood. QV., not Henry Heywood as I originally wrote.

Well, I was mistaken, or at least not entirely accurate. According to John D'Emilio's biography: Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin 2nd Edition (University of Chicago Press"(2004), Rustin may have exaggerated his involvement with the Communist Party after the fact to burnish his leftist credentials. He had joined the Young Communist League, the Party's youth branch, in 1936, at the beginning of the CPUSA's Popular Front period and resigned five years later. While a member he doesn't seem to have been very active. He continued to attend Quaker meetings and sing spirituals in church choirs. Rustin's public break came when the Party abruptly abandoned its antiwar stance, which Rustin had shared, after the Soviet Union was attacked in June of 1941. D'Emilio speculates that Rustin may have been preparing the break for some time. That year Rustin had begun what would become a life-long association with the powerful labor leader J. Philip Randolph, who distrusted the Communists and didn't hesitate to say so. Randolph had attained his leadership position without their help. During this period Rustin also had become very friendly with A.J. Muste, the recently appointed head of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a Christian pacifist organization. Rustin had gone to Puerto Rico to assist conscientious objectors at FOR's behest, and by September 1941, was working as a secretary of that organization, whose twin ideals of Christianity and Pacifism were antithetical to Communist dogma. Mballen (talk) 08:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC) Mballen (talk) 22:30, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

That's pretty interesting stuff. If you can, it might be good to incorporate some of this information into the article. Lennart97 (talk) 12:23, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm trying to get hold of the cited biography of Rustin so I will know more about the subject and can make some necessary changes. :) Mballen (talk) 22:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

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