Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (District of Columbia)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced a bill today to create a stamp commemorating civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. Norton said the timing of the bill’s introduction is significant, coming during Black History Month.
“Bayard Rustin, whose leadership deserves special recognition by our country, was a central figure in the civil rights movement,” Norton said. “I worked for him when he served as the principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin demonstrated how his lifelong commitment to nonviolence could be put into action, orchestrating the largest demonstration in U.S. history at the time in the nation’s capital. My bill would create a commemorative stamp in his honor, a fitting tribute to one of the chief architects of the American civil rights movement during Black History Month.”
“Bayard Rustin was one of the great architects of the civil rights movement, a brilliant strategist whose commitment to nonviolence helped shape the course of American history,” Torres said. “As the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, he turned moral conviction into collective action and brought hundreds of thousands together in the fight for justice. Honoring his legacy with a commemorative stamp is a meaningful way to recognize a trailblazer whose courage, intellect, and vision helped move our nation closer to its ideals.”
Born March 17, 1912, Bayard Rustin became one of the most important leaders in the 20th century civil rights movement. Rustin learned the values of nonviolence and peacekeeping from his grandparents’ Quaker faith at a young age, and he would continue to build these values into his life as a civil rights movement leader. Rustin was an advisor in Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle as King advocated pacifism and nonviolence for achieving equal treatment for African Americans. Rustin executed aggressive but peaceful action in the civil rights movement and throughout his life as an activist.
His most important role was as the chief organizer of the historic 1963 March on Washington, the largest demonstration ever organized at the time, in which a quarter of a million people turned out to demand civil rights for African Americans.
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