Summary Of Bayard Rustin's Time On Two Crosses

*In the biography, “Time on Two Crosses,” multiple authors worked together to compile a large collection of writings by or about Bayard Rustin in effort to allow the readers to create an image of who he was and what he stood for. The life he lived was not a simple one; Bayard Rustin was a black activist that stood by the side of famous Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., during most of the late 1950s to the early 1960s. He bled and struggled, like many others did during this time, for the progressive rights of African Americans nationwide. So why does he remain forgotten? To answer this, you must understand that it was because he was under two layers of vilified societal rhetoric; Bayard Rustin was a homosexual, black man. But …show more content…
Immediately, he illustrated in great detail the abominable conditions of the camp. The building being festered with roaches in every room and, in the living quarter, approximately a hundred men were closely stacked together in double-decker beds like sardines. The odor, Rustin had gone on further to describe, was absolutely rancid and he went on to later explain that it was largely due to the fact that "each week [the inmates] were only given one suit of underclothing, one pair of socks, a shirt, and a pair of socks. Even though [they] worked in the mud and rain, this was the only clothing [they] would get until the next week." (Rustin, Carbado 2003) Due to this, some inmates did not even see the point in washing themselves if they were only able to put back on the sweat-soaked clothing on anyway. Moveover, Rustin goes on to quote another inmate words: "We don't get nothing but the clothes we got on and a towel and soap-no comb, no brush, no toothbrush, no razor, no blades, no stamps, no writing paper, no pencils, nothing [...] They say, 'Another day another dollar' but all we gets is blisters, a broken backs, and spit from them damn guards." (Rustin, Carbado 2003) The saying connects to recurring topic in the article, “The Immediate Danger of the Negro,” where the …show more content…
Martin Luther King Jr. is a reputable man well known here in the United States for his fight against injustice toward African Americans during the Civil Rights movement up until his assassination in 1968. Dr. King even stated in his renowned Letter to Birmingham that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” (King 1963) implying prejudice and ill-treatment was like the cancer of society that would continue to pollute and spread if it were not stopped. He was a great, moral man but even he was not without his flaws. Like I had stated earlier in this paper, Bayard Rustin was by Martin Luther King Jr.’s side for most of the Civil Rights movement and remained loyal to King’s cause and stood behind the reverend’s leadership, but King had disavowed his relationship with Rustin in 1960. What made the reverend react in this manner? This was in result of Adam Clayton Powell, a Congressman from Harlem, threatening to 'reveal' King and Rustin's alleged sexual relations to the press. There was no affair but when given the choice to either remain by Rustin’s side as repayment for his unrelenting loyalty or to renounce him, King capitulated to the threat and Rustin was forced to resigned. The underlying reasoning for this all ties into the stigmatization of ‘homosexuals’ in a social and political