Walter Naegle, partner of Bayard Rustin, shares memories of the 1963 march organizer
theGRIO VIDEO - The couple, which had been together for ten years at the time of Rustin's death, could not enjoy the right of marriage equality, now available in New York State. Years after the death of his partner, Nagle has remained the keeper of Rustin's flame...
Rustin’s partner has helped spur this renewed interest by donating the pacifist’s papers and mementoes for use by various projects, such as in the acclaimed film Brother Outsider.
“Right now there is an exhibit in the Smithsonian American Museum,” Naegle said. “It’s called ‘Changing America,’ and it partners the 150th year of the Emancipation Proclamation with the 1963 March on Washington. The march was 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and we were marching to fulfill these rights, if you will,” Naegle said of the march of ’63.
Rustin’s partner donated a gold watch that Dr. King had given the organizer after the march to the museum, in addition to papers that document the demonstration’s planning. Rustin’s personal papers are now preserved by the Library of Congress, where the public can research his writing, through Naegle’s efforts.
Critiques of the idealist
While remembering Rustin, it is hard to forget those who accused him of moving away from the core leadership of the Civil Rights Movement towards the end of his most active period. Critics believed that he erroneously came to focus less on race and more on economics, to the detriment of the interests of African-Americans.
Naegle believes they have it wrong.
“I think when you are in a position of working with power, there is only so far you can go to influence power,” he told theGrio. “Whereas, if you are working on the outside, sooner or later you will probably have to compromise, but it’s at the point where your goals are in site, where you’re gaining some of your ends.”
In this manner, as Bayard became better known to those in power, including President Johnson and others in mainstream leadership at the time, he chose to go the route of compromise with those forces, rather than continuing to protest on the margins. This choice echoed Rustin’s firm belief that financial empowerment was essential to the advancement of blacks, even if imperfect compromises were essential to the coalition building that could lead to that empowerment.
“Bayard was always a staunch supporter of the labor movement,” Naegle affirmed. “He didn’t do it blindly. He knew there was racism.” Yet, working well with groups that were not race-blind could result in better access to economic freedom, empowering blacks more in the long run, Rustin believed.
History settles the score
But many, such as Amiri Baraka among others, saw Rustin as an “Uncle Tom” for in their view being too accommodating to whites during a time when staunch militantism was seen as essential to true black empowerment.
“I think at this point in time he could point back to the people he knew,” Naegle told theGrio, “to Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael, and even Baraka, [and] look at their accomplishments compared to the accomplishments of Roy Wilkins,” and other mainstream civil rights leaders.
Considering the lasting results of Rustin, King and other pacifists, Naegle invites critics to “make a judgement about whether the progress that has been made is due to those efforts or to the more radical efforts, if you will.”
After the nation just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, and its legacy, it is clear that Rustin’s achievements have been significant, with perhaps eternal aftereffects.
In telling these stories, Naegle’s devotion rings true after all these years. Watch the video above for more on his remembrances of Bayard Rustin.
Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb
This article has been updated to correctly reflect that Bayard Rustin will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom later in the year, rather than having already been awarded it.
