Pride Month and Juneteenth

Bayard Rustin - Photo Credit: AP. 

President Joe Biden signed a bill into law commemorating June 19 (commonly called Juneteenth), which marks the end of chattel slavery in the U.S., as a federal holiday.

Just as the Pride flag received a very welcome update, we wanted to highlight both events this week as both Pride and Juneteenth are about acceptance and affirmation.

But we are not making this statement because the Pride flag was changed or because a Juneteenth holiday was announced. We are making it because these two movements have been synced since before the Stonewall riots; the March on Washington happened in 1963, and just a few short years later black drag queens were amongst the first to start the Stonewall riots in 1969.

One example of the unity of these movements is Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), an amazing individual that we'd like to take some time to recognize today for his work and his example.

Famous for being one of the most prominent advisers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, Rustin fought all his life for the rights of African American people, but also for the betterment of American society.

Before his involvement in the March on Washington for jobs and freedom, he travelled across the U.S. to not only protect and defend the Black minorities, but also to help protect the properties of more than 120,000 Asian people (most of them U.S. Citizens) imprisoned in internment camps during the Second World War. 

Rustin was also openly gay when being so was illegal, landing him in jail. He saw his coming out as an act of honesty and education to people and their children to fight prejudice by preventing prejudice from happening. He was a Gay rights activist until the end of his life in the 1980’s.

For Rustin, it was natural to reach out and network with everyone for a better society - he worked with religious organisations (he was Quaker), political parties (helping to build the American doctrine of Social-Democracy), and white Unions. A Pacifist, he also protested the wars waged by his country and the treatment of Jews by the USSR, as it reminded him of the segregation he himself had experienced.

He was posthumously inducted to the Legacy Walk and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

To know more about Bayard Rustin, please click here. 

As we build a world geared toward freedom and justice for ALL, we empower other to take a stand when faced with opposition to push us forward, step by step, towards that goal.