To celebrate Black History Month we talked with Walter Naegle who was pioneer civil rights activist Bayard Rustin's partner for the last decade of Rustin's life who died in 1987. Rustin taught Martin Luther King Jr. strategies of nonviolence during the Montgomery Bus Boycott & reached international notoriety in 1963 as the openly gay organizer of the March on Washington. In 2013 President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor posthumously to Bayard Rustin. Naegle accepted the award on Rustin's behalf stating "Being black, being homosexual, being a political radical, that’s a combination that’s pretty volatile and it comes along like Halley’s Comet. Bayard’s life was complex, but at the same time I think it makes it a lot more interesting." When asked what his personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Naegle stated, “My personal commitment is to be who I am as an LGBT person & more broadly a human being to support LGBT equality & issues whenever I can, which nowadays is very often speaking at colleges & community centers & libraries & lifting up the fact that Bayard was a very important leader in the civil & human rights movement who happened to be LGBT & lived during a time when these kinds of things weren’t discussed. And yet he was able to live fairly openly as a gay man. He paid the price for it but actions that were taken to try & quiet him never really succeeded. He rose above all that stuff & was able to make a significant contribution to the democratization of our society as a whole, so that is really the reason why a lot of younger LGBT folks kind of lift him up now as an inspiration & as a hero. I guess my commitment would be to sort of continue promoting his legacy & his values & to live as an integrated person myself.”
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ReplyDeleteAfter listening to Walter speak about Bayard, I can only imagine how fabulous they were together and how their lives together must have effected everyone around them. This interview pays homage to a great man and Walter describes Bayard in such a beautiful way. I really enjoyed hearing this.