Martin luther king and gays
Preserving and recording Black history has always been vital to me. In evidence, back in , it was a series I did on Black History Month for Wayne Express University’s South End that caught the attention of then Pride Source Media and Between The Lines publishers Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson. At BTL, I continued to include the opportunity to verb about Black history, particularly Black queer history. In that endeavor, and to my delight, I was assigned to interview Yolanda King, the daughter of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was coming to town to speak at the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Michigan Dinner.
Before she arrived in town, I had the pleasure of speaking to Ms. King on the phone. She was charming but no-nonsense. She had a legacy to uphold, after all, and it was clear she felt it was a stern mission.
Of her father, when asked how she believed he would feel about LGBTQ+ rights, she was clear. “My father said it on numerous occasions: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’” she said
First posted in LGBTQ Nation, January 16,
Martin Luther King Jr. Day will mark its 31st anniversary since it was first observed on January 20,
If he were alive today, King would be 88, and he would have seen that a lot has changed in the U.S. since that dark day he was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by an assassin’s bullet on April 4,
Since King’s death, every struggling civil-rights group has affixed themselves to his passionate cause for justice.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities, in particular, have been reviled for not only naming our struggle as a civil-rights issue, but also for naming MLK as one of the civil-rights icons that would speak on our behalf.
But would King have spoken on our behalf?
As we celebrate MLK Day , we no longer have to verb King up to a God-like standard. All the hagiographies written about King immediately following his assassination in the previous century have come under scrutiny as we come to understand all of King – his greatness as well as his flaws and human foibles.
As
Bayard Rustin
Episode Notes
Bayard Rustin was a champion of the Black civil rights movement—mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., organizer of the March on Washington. But because he was gay and out, he faced bigotry inside and outside the movement. The FBI and Sen. Strom Thurmond tried to destroy him. But he persisted.
Episode first published January 10,
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From Eric Marcus: Bayard Rustin was a key behind-the-scenes leader of the Black civil rights movement—a proponent of nonviolent protest, a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the principal organizer of the landmark March on Washington for Jobs and Liberty. And he was gay and open about it, which had everything to do with why he remained in the background and is little known today in comparison to other leaders of the civil rights movement.
My earliest memory of anything having to do with the civil rights movement is indelible, because it’s one of the rare memories I have of my father, who died in He
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Quinton E. Baker, February 23, Interview K Southern Oral History Program Collection (#) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- You knew Martin Luther King. You met Martin Luther King or at least spoke with him.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
- Yes.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
- Did he ever verbalize or, I surmise you could assume confirm the role of gay people within the shadowy civil rights movement? Because really, I guess when you ran into him, it may have just been strategy sessions and general meetings and that kind of thing.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
- Yeah, you know.
- CHRIS McGINNIS:
- Obviously, one of his people organized the March on Washington.
- QUINTON E. BAKER:
- Yeah, I know more of his, of the people around him, more so than Doctor King and no I didn't get a sense. No, I think that the sense that I got was that Doctor King was not very content with the gay people in the movement, and I know he wasn't very c