In the '90s I was a founding member of the Black History Club in high school, took black history courses in college, and worked in the office of minority affairs in graduate school, and yet I didn't know who Bayard Rustin was until I saw the 2003 documentary “Brother Stranger.”
That rudeness was not accidental.
opinion columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about culture, politics, sports, and living life in America.
Rustin, the man who introduced the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the principles of nonviolence, the man who organized the March on Washington, was gay. Due to his sexual orientation, his contributions to the civil rights movement were rarely counted. Since the documentary's release 20 years ago, there has been a concerted effort to change that, culminating most recently with the 2023 film “Rustin” and the performance of awards season favorite Colman Domingo in the lead role.
A decade ago, Domingo played Ralph Abernathy in Ava DuVernay's “Selma,” which also starred Rustin. Today he is the first Afro-Latino nominated for an Oscar as a leading actor. He is the second gay man nominated for playing an out gay man.
This intersection has quietly played an important role in Domingo's career: He appeared in the 2020 Oscar-winning film “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,” about the life of a queer Black woman, and in the 2018 Oscar-winning film “If Beale Street Could Talk”, based on a book by James Baldwin, a gay black man. For his work last year, in addition to being nominated for an Oscar for “Rustin,” Domingo is part of the SAG-nominated cast of “The Color Purple,” written by our black author Alice Walker.
Recently it seems like Domingo has been the person to call when Hollywood recognizes that representation matters. Not because he can garner attention and awards, but because the representation reflects the history and connective tissue between the Black and LGBTQ+ communities.
For many years, what little queer content there was in the American mainstream did not include people of color. But we've been here for a long time, standing at the intersection.
Walker’s “Purple” shaped the 1980s; Baldwin’s “Beale Street” was born in the 1970s; Rustin rose to prominence in the 1960s, but his civil rights work dates back to the 1940s; and Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues, was a queer Black woman born in 1886. That was the year of the Carroll County Courthouse Massacre in Mississippi. More than 50 armed white men burst into a courtroom and opened fire on all the blacks present, killing more than 20. The crime? A black lawyer bringing charges against a white person. That was the world Rainey was born into. And in that world she openly had relationships with women. I marvel at the bravery. Viola Davis was nominated for numerous awards for bringing Rainey's full life to the public.
It is important to tell these stories at the intersection. People need to know this history that has been hidden from us all due to the attitudes of yesteryear. It is important that Hollywood develop the same fascination with these hidden figures as it does with the lives of Garland, Monroe, Elvis and other white cultural icons whose biographies have been reexamined again and again. Now that queer storytelling has expanded beyond Stonewall and the HIV/AIDS crisis, my hope is that more of the Rustins of the story will be explored. The entertainment value is important, the story even more so.
Keeping warriors like Rustin out of the story and narrative was intentional. The pressure to correct that mistake must also be deliberate. It's wonderful that Domingo is everywhere for his portrayal of Rustin. And it would be even more so if Rustin, who was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, was everywhere for Black History Month.
His role in history is still not celebrated as it should be. Maybe it never will be. That's what happens when contributions are minimized. Stories are lost. Tremendous acts of bravery are forgotten. Too many lives that we should honor become unknown.
This awards season has shone a light on someone we should never forget. Perhaps instead of relying on sequels and reboots, Hollywood should turn to the stories nested in our history that we should know. The history that prejudices tried to keep in the shadows must take center stage.
