Beautiful Bayard

As I have written before, FOR organizer Bayard Rustin had an impact on my small North Carolina hometown when he was arrested here during the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation.

Phill Blank is a Carrboro, NC artist who is known for his skillful and surreal portraits. His work is often inspired by Buddhist ideals or by local culture and history. Earlier this year, he created this illustration of Bayard Rustin:

Read on for the artist's statement published in the Carrboro Citizen:

April 13, 1947. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Along with three other members of the Journey of Reconciliation, Bayard Rustin was arrested for refusing to move from the whites-only section of an interstate bus. After their release from the courthouse, two cars followed the men to the home of Rev. Charles Jones. A few minutes after arriving, the phone rang. A voice said, “Get those damn niggers out of town or we’ll burn your house down.” For his “crime,” Rustin spent twenty-two days on a Roxboro chain gang. Writing articles for the New York Post while in prison, Rustin exposed the cruel conditions there. Of an earlier encounter in which he refused to give up his seat on a bus, Bayard Rustin said “I believe all the more strongly in the nonviolent approach.” The respect and seriousness with which his struggle was met, he believed, was “because I had without fear, faced the policeman and said ‘there is no need to beat me, I offer you no resistance.’”

From left to right: A. J. Muste, revolutionary pacifist. Julia Rustin, his Quaker grandmother who offered her acceptance of Bayard’s sexuality, “I suppose that’s what you need to do.” (To Rustin, “It was recognition so I never had guilt.") Krishnalal Shridharani, nonviolent theorist and inspiration. A. Philip Randolph, tactician for economic justice and believer in the fundamental unity of peoples.