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Bayard Rustin Special Part 1 |
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Sunday, 25 February 2007 |
Today’s show is a rebroadcast of a special honoring Bayard Rustin, an activist involved in the peace and civil rights struggles
The fight against racism, and genocide has a long history. In the so called “New World” indigenous cultures fought for their lives against slavery, genocide and racism. In Africa the fight has been even longer as Europeans began their colonization process there first.
Honoring the resistance to the barbarity of racist exploitation is crucial. This history guide to the power of collective struggle, revealing historic gains that are possible, such as the defeat of slavery in the United States, as well as how exploiters mutate their systems to maintain control in the face of popular resistance, such as the imposition of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South of the US following the Civil War. The Jim Crow System began with the defeat of the revolutionary democracy called “Reconstruction” following the US Civil War. Black codes were passed as legislation restricting employment, housing and public accommodations as well as citizen rights such as voting.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people owe a great debt to the struggles of Blacks in the United States. Their struggle has enlarged the concept of freedom greatly.
The role of Black gays and lesbians as key players in the struggle has not been generally recognized. Today we’ll take a look at a piece of that history in a retrospective rebroadcast of a special produced by Out-FM in 2003. We’ll look at the life of gay African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin who was an activist and organizer from the late 1930s to the 1980s. Rustin was a part of the movement which helped to deconstruct Jim Crow segregation which accomplished many progressive changes, many of which are under attack by the current manifestation of racism in the US which have resulted in increased economic disparities between whites and blacks in the US in recent years. This is part one of two parts.
Click HERE to listen to the show |
