Yesterday my Quaker Meeting hosted John D'Emilio, author of the book Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin. I have yet to read the book, but I am anxious to. I had never even heard of Bayard Rustin until about a year ago. Who was he? Kind of a Renaissance man of peace and social justice: a Quaker; the person responsible for introducing Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance to Martin Luther King, Jr.; a superb strategist who organized, among other things, the 1963 march on Washington, DC; active in both the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters' League; a talented musician who performed on Broadway with Paul Robeson; worked for civil rights in both the U.S. and Africa; sidelined by the "movement" because he was openly gay ...
My friends have been raving about this book!
I don't have the exact quote here, but I'll try to paraphrase something that D'Emilio quoted. He said that Rustin, in his later years, was often asked how he found the hope to go on after King was assassinated, after he was sidelined, after the Civil Rights Movement that had showed so much promise failed to live up to its potential ... and he would say that hope isn't something you find, it's something you have to work to create. Wise words to try to live by in these dark times.
More on Bayard Rustin later, after I've read the book.
2 comments:
Thanks for the tip. I'll have to add this to my summer reading shelf.
How's Terry Pratchett coming, Dave?
Monstrous Regiment -- that's a good one for when the rightwing intolerants have got you down.
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