(Photo Credits: Screengrab from Netflix’s Official Twitter Account)
Netflix has an upcoming American drama film titled Rustin, which is all about the life of gay civil rights icon Bayard Rustin.
Bayard Rustin, according to Time Magazine, is the “unknown hero of the civil rights movement” in the United States. He is best remembered as one of the first “freedom riders” and as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s adviser and chief organizer who “helped translate the philosophy of nonviolence into direct action by organizing the 1963 March on Washington.”
If you haven’t heard of Rustin until today, it’s because Rustin was an openly gay black man so he reportedly chose to “stay out of the spotlight because he knew his homosexuality would cost the movement mainstream credibility.” You can read more about Rustin through the article we wrote about him last year here.
Reportedly, the film—which will be directed by Emmy nominee George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, starring the late Chadwick Boseman)—won’t be shown until 2023, but it will be worth the wait for sure. The script was written by Oscar-winner Dustin Lance Black, best-known for his screenplay for Milk (2008) starring Sean Penn.
The LGBT biopic will star Euphoria actor Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin, Chris Rock as Roy Wilkins, Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph, Audra McDonald (Respect) as Ella Baker, and Aml Ameen (I May Destroy You) as Martin Luther King Jr., to name a few. It is being produced by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions.
If you wish to learn more about Bayard Rustin, click here, here, and here. You can also opt to watch Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer’s Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin here via Vimeo. HBO Max has a documentary titled Equal about Bayard Rustin as well. Watch it here.
“… Rustin was an openly gay black man so he reportedly chose to ‘stay out of the spotlight because he knew his homosexuality would cost the movement mainstream credibility.'”
How could he be openly gay yet stay out of the media’s eye? This was 1963. Homosexuality was still widely unaccepted.
Unless the media back then wisely chose to look the other way and not go after MLK’s Movement. There was a time, unthinkable today, when the media understood words like “prudence” and “sensibility” instead if just “today’s big scoop!” and “exposee” and biased reporting.
Excellent! It’s about time.
Well deserved!!! Proud of his many accomplishments.