Bayard Rustin Film Screens to Honor Gay Pride Month
Monday, June 23, 2008
(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)
He was there at most of the important
events of the Civil Rights Movement - but
always in the background. The film “Brother
Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin” –
which screens in DC three times this week --
asks "Why?" It presents a vivid drama,
intermingling the 
personal and the
political, about one of the most enigmatic
figures in 20th-century American history. One
of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip
Randolph, organizer of the march on Washington,
intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Bayard
Rustin was denied his place in the limelight
for one reason - he was gay. “Brother
Outsider” contributes a fascinating new
chapter to our understanding of both
progressive movements and gay life in
20th-century America. “Brother Outsider” is
being screened in honor of Gay Pride Month by
the DC Labor FilmFest twice on Tuesday at noon,
at the American Federation of Teachers
and at AFGE Local 12 (at the Department of
Labor) and then at noon on Friday at the
AFL-CIO. The screenings are co-sponsored by the
AFT, AFGE 12, the AFL-CIO, and the DC chapters
of Pride at Work and the A. Philip Randolph
Institute. Film note courtesy
California
Newsreel;
photo by the Associated Press
