Rustin, Bayard (1910-1987)

US institute head and civil-rights activist. After many years' involvement in politics and civil rights, Rustin joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1955 as Martin Luther King's special assistant. In 1964 he became executive director of the newly founded A Philip Randoph Institute, where he worked to to promote programs to cure America's social and economic ills. Although an advocate of black political power, he was not in favour of separatism.

Rustin joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a nonviolent antiwar group, in 1941. He served several jail terms in the 1940s for conscientious objection during World War II, for demonstrating in the American Indian independence movement, and for participating in a North Carolina ‘freedom ride’ in 1947.