Bayard Rustin was a part of one of the most historic events in American History, the Civil Rights Movement. He is one of the unknown hero’s of the movement being one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s right hand men. Standing in the presence of Kings he was truly one of them. Responsible for assisting Dr. King in writing his speeches and being one of his closest friends and supporters Rustin was a true man of honor. In the midst of the Movement Rustin also had another movement spilling into his world, he was gay. Eventually he was fired from his post and in this performance he tells the story of what it felt like to fight for the freedom of part of who he was and not the other part. Was the timing not right, or was the Civil Rights Movement the first priority for America to deal with and the other freedoms would soon follow? It is a challenging story that shows the challenge of having to choose which part of yourself is most important and accepting that the things that we want or even need may take time to come to fruition. (Fiction)
Male- The Shadows Of Kings
- (Scene opens with Rustic looking around a room. It is a room he has been in before but there is a presence of history/ demons of some kind. He is affected by simply being there.) "I have a dream today." (Laughs) I told Martin that that was the best tagline he could've possibly come up with for that speech. The idea that we knew and understood that we expecting the black people, white people, all people to believe in something that could only be seen as a dream. I was a philosopher of the time if you will. I looked at a white man calling me a “nigga” in the same way that a slave looked at a master calling them their property; it was the next generation of racism. (Smiles) When you’re on the receiving end of the ignorance of the time you always wonder when it’s going to stop. If it will ever be okay to be a black man walking down the country streets of Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana without hiding in the trees when you hear a car approaching, because we know that a black face is not behind the wheel (Beat) a day and time when the face doesn’t have to be black to be safe. We all had a dream and Martin was our soundboard. A highly respected minister and pillar of the community, it just made sense. He was the best speaker in the group and we followed him because he allowed us to speak through him. I didn’t care that no one knew who Bayard Rustin was. I wrote speeches for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., marched side by side with him and believed. Do you know what it feels like to believe in a cause? Believe that the blood that you shed for the cause would eventually create a better world. Believe that once we were done fighting this fight we could start fighting the next one. (Beat) He always taught us to, “Be ready for the fight that’s coming over the horizon, because like the rise of the sun it is coming. It is coming, the next fight is always coming.” He was right about that, he was definitely right about that.