For PRIDE: Accomplished Yet Obscure Queer People In History

I first read about Bayard Rustin in “The Nation” in the late 1990s. His story was both sad and inspirational. Here is some background on an unrecognized star (not that article I read years ago, I’m sorry. I have no access.)

Bayard Rustin

(1912–1987)

Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) was a human rights activist known for his work during the Civil Rights Movement

Rustin was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest advisors, especially on techniques of nonviolent resistance. Rustin was extremely active in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and helped to create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Early in his career, he was arrested for “moral cause” which led to his outing to the public. However, once outed, Rustin was completely open about his sexuality and was never ashamed. Criticism and discrimination over his sexuality led Rustin to have a more background role in the Civil Rights Movement. He never wanted his sexuality to have a negative effect on the Movement, which is often the reason that Rustin’s efforts are not widely known. (snip-MORE)

Bayard Rustin: A Gay Man in the Civil Rights Movement.

Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights.

2HKJNR6 Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), American civil rights activist, attending Walter Reuther Press Conference, Warren K. Leffler, US News & World Report Magazine Collection, March 17, 1965

Bayard Rustin was an unsung hero whose indomitable spirit and relentless dedication carved a pivotal path in the American civil rights movement. Despite the shadows cast by prejudice and political adversity, Rustin’s life radiated with a fervent commitment to justice, equality, and nonviolence. His story is one of courage, resilience, and unwavering passion for the principles he held dear.

A Foundation of Activism

Born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Rustin was nurtured in a household steeped in activism and moral conviction. Raised by his Quaker grandparents, particularly his grandmother, Julia Rustin, a dedicated member of the NAACP, he absorbed the values of equality and social justice from an early age. This upbringing ignited a spark within him that would blaze throughout his lifetime.

Rustin’s early education at Wilberforce University and Cheyney State Teachers College further fueled his activist spirit. Though he did not complete his degree, these institutions were fertile ground for his burgeoning political consciousness. His move to Harlem in 1936 immersed him in the heart of African-American culture and political activism, setting the stage for his life’s work.

The Power of Nonviolence

Rustin’s commitment to nonviolence was both a strategic choice and a deeply held belief. His association with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a pacifist organisation, was pivotal. Under the mentorship of A. J. Muste, Rustin honed his skills in civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance, becoming a leading voice in the fight against racial injustice.

In 1947, Rustin co-organised the Journey of Reconciliation, a courageous precursor to the Freedom Rides of the 1960s. This daring initiative aimed to dismantle segregation on interstate buses through direct action. Facing arrests and brutality, Rustin’s unwavering resolve demonstrated the transformative power of nonviolent protest and set a powerful precedent for future civil rights campaigns.

A Strategic Visionary

Rustin’s encounter with Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott marked a turning point in the civil rights movement. Recognising King’s potential, Rustin became a crucial advisor, infusing the movement with his vast experience and strategic acumen. His efforts were instrumental in the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, strengthening the infrastructure of the civil rights struggle.

Rustin’s strategic brilliance shone through his emphasis on Gandhian principles of nonviolence. He played a key role in guiding King towards these philosophies, ensuring that nonviolent resistance remained at the heart of the movement. Rustin’s behind-the-scenes influence was a driving force that propelled the civil rights movement forward, even amidst escalating tensions and opposition.

The March on Washington (snip-MORE)

And from Quakers In Action,

Bayard Rustin

1912-1987

Bayard Rustin was a black Civil Rights activist, a close associate of Martin Luther King, and an advocate of gay and lesbian rights, and a Quaker.

Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and was brought up by his grandmother, who had been raised as a Quaker. He himself became a Quaker in 1936, shortly before moving to New York where he lived most of his adult life. He was a pacifist and a primary influence in bringing non-violent resistance into the American Civil Rights Movement, much inspired by Gandhi’s approach in India.

In 1941, he joined the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. He protested against segregation within the armed forces, and worked with the American Friends Service Committee to protect the property of interned Japanese Americans.

Despite his membership of the Society of Friends (one of the so-called ‘Historic Peace Churches’), Rustin was jailed in 1944 for his conscientious objection to cooperating with the draft. While in jail, he organised protests against segregated seating in the dining hall. In a letter to the prison warden, he wrote:

Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it. There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it.

After the War, he took part in the Journey of Reconciliation across four southern States, to protest against illegal segregation in inter-state travel. He was arrested, along with his fellow protestors, several times in the course of the journey and in North Carolina was sentenced to thirty days on a chain gang. The protest became a model for future ‘Freedom Rides’.

In 1956, he was asked to advise Martin Luther King on the application of non-violent resistance to the boycott of public transport in Montgomery, Alabama. In August 1963, Rustin had the mammoth task of organising the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom – a rally attended by twenty thousand people that culminated in King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. In 1968, shortly before King’s assassination, he drafted the ‘Economic Bill of Rights’ which called for – among other things – a meaningful job and a living wage for people of all colours.

Rustin’s concern for Human Rights was never confined to black Americans. In the 1940s and 50s, He supported independence movements in India, Ghana and Nigeria. In the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin became an election and human rights observer in countries like Chile, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, Poland, and Zimbabwe. As Vice Chairman of the International Rescue Committee he participated in the international March for Survival on the Thai-Cambodian border and helped raise awareness of the plight of the Vietnamese boat people. He was Co-Chairman of the Citizens Commission on Indochinese Refugees and helped found the National Emergency Coalition for Haitian Refugees.

Rustin was an openly gay man who had once been arrested for public indecency at a time when homosexuality was illegal in all US states. This fact was used against him more than once and contributed to his relatively low profile in the Civil Rights movement. However, in the 1970s and 80s he wrote a number of essays which drew parallels between the black civil rights movement and the gay liberation movement. In 1986, Rustin wrote:

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination… It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change… The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

Rustin fell ill during a human rights expedition to Haiti in 1987 and died shortly after from a perforated appendix.

His life was documented in the film Brother Outsider.

His collected writings were published in A Time On Two Crosses.

Republican Ghoul Wants “Proof” Children Killed By Israel’s Bombs Are Innocent

A Republican wearing an IDF pin is defending Israel’s genocide and invasion of Lebanon. He believes anything Israel does is OK, including attacking another country, killing its people, all to steal that country’s land. Same thing Russia is doing to Ukraine that the US tried to stop. Yet some members of our government / congress are bought and owned by Israel’s government. Hugs

Your Josh Day Next Day!

Weekly Skews With Trae

Scott Pelley says Bari Weiss wanted 60 Minutes to say Renee Good was ‘driving toward officer’

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/07/scott-pelley-bari-weiss-renee-good-report

Fired journalist accuses CBS News chief of interfering with report because it did not echo Trump’s view of the shooting

Scott Pelley was fired from CBS 60 Minutes last week. Photograph: Charles Sykes/AP

The fired 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley has accused editorial management at CBS of interfering with a broadcast segment on the killing of the Minneapolis protester Renee Good by an immigration officer in January.

The veteran broadcaster, who was recently dismissed from the show, said CBS News’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, had sent an email to his supervisor requesting changes shortly before the airing of the segment in question.

In an interview with the New York Times published on Sunday, the 68-year-old Pelley accused Weiss of injecting “falsehoods and bias” into programming.

Pelley told the outlet: “Two of the things in the email include, ‘Can we make the protesters look more violent?’ Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”

Pelley maintained that was the direction contained in the email even though video of Good’s shooting did not support such a conclusion.

A CBS News spokesperson told the Times in response to Pelley’s statements that Weiss had made four points in an email exchange on the segment that had “no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible”.

“Not everything she raised made it into the final piece,” the statement added.

Pelley’s accusation comes amid turbulence at the flagship TV news show that has seen the 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon replaced and several correspondents and producers leave over questions of editorial independence. Three of the show’s veterans – Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim – are staying on.

The newly installed executive producer, Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair journalist and film-maker, told staff in a memo that “the foundation of 60 Minutes is journalistic independence.

“We will always pursue stories without fear or favor.”

Pelley’s accusations to the Times followed a heated exchange at a meeting on Monday in which he accused Weiss of “murdering” the show. He was fired soon after.

In his latest salvo, Pelley said he was concerned that Weiss “had zero television experience and had never managed a large global operation like CBS News”. He also called her lack of TV news experience “red flags to me”.

Pelley also said that Bilton’s mission to modernize the 58-year-old show ignored changes that were already in play.

“Of course we have to reach out to a younger and younger audience, but their argument about joining the internet age is just disingenuous,” Pelley said. “It’s almost as if Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton were sealed in a time capsule in 1990, and it just cracked open. They’ve just discovered the internet, and they’re running around telling everybody how important it is.”

Pelley’s accusations over the Minneapolis segment in part centered on what took place in the seconds before Good was shot by an immigration enforcement officer.

“On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car,” Pelley told the Times. “You clearly see Ms Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head [and] kills her.”

Pelley also alluded to cellphone video from the officer’s vantage point that was publicly released and captured him calling Good a “fucking bitch”.

As Pelley put it, the officer said “something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company”.

Pelley said that 60 Minutes had “gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had … somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms Weiss”.

He added that video of the shooting showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t “driving toward him”. He argued that Weiss “wanted it described that way” because it echoed what Donald Trump said of the shooting in his capacity as president.

Asked to respond to Pelley’s claim that Weiss “was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the [Trump] administration”, CBS News said there was “no credible argument” to suggest she was doing that.

All Clay Jones This Morning

Lies and Hissy Fits

A black female journalist stands up to a bully

Clay Jones

Donald Trump had an interview with a national news network, and he got fact-checked. Obviously, this network was not Fox News, because it would typically allow him to lie unabated.

It was a wide-ranging interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker that aired Sunday on Meet the Press, and ended abruptly in a hissy fit on his part. Trump claimed that the California gubernatorial primary is “rigged” in favor of Democrats. Instead of letting his lie slide by, Welker pushed back and pointed out that there is no evidence to his claim. Welker was professional and tried to move the interview forward after calling out his lie, but Trump would not let it go.

Trump has a tradition of castigating black female journalists, and he continued it with Welker, saying, “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” before ending the interview in a tantrum. (snip-MORE)

Got A Basketball Trump

I think I can speak for all NBA fans, especially those in New York City, when I say to Donald Trump, stay away.

Clay Jones

It seems that Donald Trump wants to take something else away from the people and make it all about himself. This time, it’s the NBA finals.

The New York Knicks lead in the finals, 2-0, after defeating the Spurs in the first two games in San Antonio. Now, the series is headed to New York City, where it will resume on Monday night. Not only will there be thousands upon thousands of rabid New York fans waiting for them, but also Donald Trump.

The Knicks haven’t won an NBA Finals series since 1973, and fans are worried that Donald Trump’s presence will jinx their current run, where they have not lost in the last 12 games. The Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Detroit Pistons on their way to meet the Spurs in the finals. The Spurs are supposed to be the better team, but no one has told the Knicks that yet.

Knicks owner James Dolan has invited Trump to attend Monday’s game at Madison Square Garden. Why would he do that? Is he stupid? (snip-MORE)

AI Versus Nepo Grifter Babies

Something needs to replace them

Clay Jones

I considered taking the day off, but I have a hard time not working. I kind of sort of don’t know what to do with myself. So I drew something, but decided not to spend too much time on it.

I was thinking about artificial intelligence and how much I hate it. I really hate these people on social media who use AI to create cartoons. They suck. It annoys me that these people think that they are cartoonists. We all use AI, but I really hate that people are using it for their creative process. Lately, the word “slop” has been used with AI. I don’t know who was the first to use it that way, but it’s most appropriate. When it comes to art, there isn’t a lot of variety in styles with AI, which means that when you use it, it looks generic. I can usually tell when something has been created with AI. (snip-MORE)

What A Wonderful Thing!

Under Mamdani, New York will be the first to open a free childcare center for city workers

The center, called The Little Apple, could be a model for other cities exploring ways to make life more affordable for workers.

This story was originally reported by Chabeli Carrazana of The 19th. Meet Chabeli and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Tucked in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s sprawling universal childcare plan is a little-talked-about milestone: In September, the city will open what appears to be the first free daycare for municipal workers in the country.

The center, called The Little Apple, is a pilot program that could prove to be a model for cities across the country that are childcare curious, but not ready to take the big universal swing.

Housed in a renovated space on the first floor of the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Manhattan, home base for more than 2,000 city workers, the Little Apple will offer free care to the kids of full-time staff. All workers in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), a city government support agency, can also take advantage of it regardless of their work location.

The center will be small — just 40 seats for children ages six weeks to 3 years old. To pay for it, the city budgeted about $1.5 million, or $35,000 per child.

“This is what Wall Street could call a good investment,” Mamdani said in a press conference announcing the new center. “We know that after housing, the cost of childcare is what is pushing working families out of this city.”

DCAS Commissioner Yume Kitasei told The 19th said the solution came about as a retention strategy, responding to the needs workers shared. In surveys, workers enthusiastically embraced the idea. One worker described access to free childcare as “life-changing.”

That’s probably not hyperbole. Childcare affordability is a national problem that has only grown more acute. Childcare costs an average of more than $13,000 annually nationwide; in New York for an infant at a center it’s closer to $21,000 on average. Paying for a daycare now vies with housing costs as the top constraint on family budgets, so much so that some parents have had to move or drop out of the workforce.

Cities, meanwhile, have been struggling to retain their workers since the pandemic. Benefits like childcare, which some cities and private companies have dabbled with, can help address the quality-of-life issues that are pushing workers out of jobs.

“This is a great time for us to sort of be thinking about: How can we make our jobs even more attractive to people and also retain the city workers that we have?” Kitasei said. “This is one piece of that puzzle.”

Kitasei added that a “healthy” number of staffers applied for The Little Apple and the department expects to fill its 40 childcare seats. Anyone who doesn’t get a spot will be put on a waitlist.

There is an appetite across the country for childcare solutions that could help bring down costs for certain workers, and cities are already taking on creative fixes.

Several already have childcare centers in municipal buildings or for city employees, including Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Grand Junction, Colorado, though none of them are free like New York’s. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, the county school district and a local childcare center known nationally for creating stable childcare models have partnered to provide childcare for the children of teachers inside unused classrooms in schools. Boone County, Missouri, is building a childcare center exclusively for children of first responders.

In the private sector, Google, General Mills and Siemens closed longstanding childcare centers they operated on their campuses in recent years, but efforts continue elsewhere. Patagonia has operated a childcare center at its California headquarters since the 1980s, a move it argues has lowered turnover from employees who use the site by 25 percent. Overstock.com also has an onsite childcare center at its Utah headquarters. Both are subsidized, not free.

“As cities in every region of the country compete with the private sector and other municipalities to attract and retain workers and elected officials, ensuring access to childcare offers an opportunity for local governments to build a representative workforce and invest in the future of their communities,” said Quincy Midthun, an outreach specialist with the Mayors Innovation Project at the High Road Strategy Center, a think tank focused on solutions to social problems.

The Little Apple, and New York City broadly, reflect a changing political tide when it comes to childcare.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani crouches down to shake the hand of a blonde girls wearing a pink shirt. — Mamdani and New York City children cut through “red tape” at a formerly vacant early childhood education center in Brooklyn, marking its official opening ahead of the fall term in 2026. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

The announcements of universal childcare in New York City and in New Mexico in the last year received an enormous amount of attention across the country. Both places took an idea that for many years was floated as a pipe dream — treating childcare similarly to public education — and turned it into reality. In New York, it’s one of the few issues that Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, a centrist Democrat, can agree on.

Voters are also hungry for more solutions: In poll after poll, they assert that spending money on childcare is a good investment.

Emmy Liss, who heads Mamdani’s childcare office, said childcare is at a “political tipping point.”

“We’re in this moment where folks across all political, socioeconomic, demographic spectrums recognize that childcare is essential, that childcare is something families are struggling to access, and know that the market economics of childcare don’t work without public investment,” Liss said. “We see recognition of that.”

With Little Apple, New York is testing what it looks like to commit to its promises of free care for all, but doing it first for its own employees.

“If we are asking folks to report to work in person in parts of the city where childcare is expensive, as it is all over the city, I think that we have to recognize that childcare is an important part of how we keep people in the workforce,” Liss said.

Mamdani and Hochul have been working to make childcare universally available to children in the city through a phased rollout set to conclude in four years. For 2-year olds, the mayor announced that 2,000 free seats will be available in the fall in four largely low-income areas of the city. Another 12,000 are planned for 2027. For 3-year-olds, about 2,000 new seats will be added in the fall, as well. The city has an existing universal childcare program for 4-year-olds.

Universal childcare as Mamdani envisions it will cover kids ages 6 weeks to 5 years with a price tag of about $6 billion annually, making it the most expensive pillar of his affordability agenda. Mamdani is expected to push to fund the program with a tax increase on the wealthy, a strategy Hochul has not been on board for, though the state is chipping in $4.5 billion. Mamdani has not yet unveiled what his universal childcare program would look like for infants and young toddlers.

How New York City’s program rolls out and its sustainability are being closely watched by proponents of universal care, who argue it’s also an anti-poverty measure.

“We know that other places are watching as we try different things out, including the work at the Little Apple,” Liss said.

In New York City, 21 percent of working parents experienced some kind of childcare hardship in 2024 that forced them to forgo care or use inadequate care, particularly families living in poverty, single mothers and Black parents, according to a recent report from Robin Hood, an anti-poverty organization, and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

An average of 3,400 2- and 3-year-olds were pushed into poverty between 2022 and 2024 specifically due to the cost of childcare, a separate report from the same organizations found. An estimated 4,100 2- and 3-year-olds would be lifted out of poverty each year if they had access to universal 2-K and 3-K education. That would reduce poverty for this age group by 9 percent.

Rebecca Bailin, the executive director of the parent organizing group New Yorkers United for Child Care, said the problem has reached such a fever pitch that thousands of parents started to organize around the issue in 2023 and helped push the agenda that was central to Mamdani’s election.

Bailin, who has a 1-year-old, said she can now depend on a 3-K program when her child turns 3 and likely a 2-K program, as well — a savings of about $100,000. The 2-K program Mamdani is rolling out will also be full-day care rather than partial-day care that wraps up around 2 p.m. like the existing 3-K program, addressing a top ask from parents.

“People are stoked,” Bailin said. “People feel like they can stay in the city.”

The Little Apple is a small part of the larger effort, but, “if we want to retain people, we have to do this,” Bailin said.

“This is something we want to see scaled. If city workers can’t afford to live here, that’s a real problem,” she continued. “This is really critical and we need this for everybody.”

ICE Detention Protests Heating Up | Wali Khan | TMR

This clip was with a reporter detailing the abuses in ICE detention facilities and the illegal actions of ICE agents and for profit prison staff. Profit over people as these ICE and prison staff do not see the detainees as humans like themselves. What is concerning is ICE is learning how to use existing laws to make the local law enforcement work against the will of the people. This young man wont admit he was attacked by ICE agents instead saying he thinks he hit a tree limb in the confusion but I showed Ron the video and he said the guy looks to him like he was hit repeatedly and hard in the head and possibly the body as well. When will we as a people see that these abuses are so very similar to the abuses suffered by the minorities in 1930s Geermany. Hugs