Activist/Rustin, Bayard

Inside the life of an outsider

Huntsville Times/Huntsville/AL/USA/21-Jul-05

…. Bayard Rustin visited the Montgomery home of Martin and Coretta King in 1955 as a seasoned peacemaker, well-versed in the ideology of nonviolence.

King was a neophyte in the resistance movement. But by then, as King and other civil-rights leaders were launching the Montgomery bus boycotts, Rustin had already traveled the country for the interracial Fellowship of Reconciliation, preaching the gospel of human rights and nonviolent resistance.

This Quaker activist had already joined and then resigned from the Communist Party. He was already being monitored by the FBI. ….