When civil rights leader and organizer Bayard Rustin died in 1987, his New York Times obituary referred to his partner Walter Naegle as his adopted son.
“It hurt. It hurt a bit,” Naegle told theGrio about this characterization of their bond. “At the same time I understood that it was the policy at the time. And it was the reality. Bayard did adopt me legally. We were not able to get married at that time, of course. He wanted to protect my legal interests, so we went through the process of legal adoption.”
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.
Setting history right regarding Rustin
The couple met in Times Square in 1977 when Naegle was 27 and Rustin was 65. Naegle describes himself as an old soul, and said Rustin was eternally young. Together, Naegle said, they met at the spiritual age of 40.
Rustin, the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, had always been openly gay in his private and professional spheres, but it would be several years before his public image came to reflect the full reality of the renaissance man.
Years after the death of his partner, Nagle has remained the keeper of his flame, working to ensure that Rustin’s memory is properly preserved.
Working as the head of the Bayard Rustin Fund to promote Rustin’s legacy, Naegle has devoted himself to educating people about Rustin’s pivotal role as a civil rights strategist, ensuring that this truth is absorbed into the official annals of history.
Remembering Rustin
Remembering Rustin as a great vocalist, musician and art lover, in addition to being a man who engaged in 50 years of activism, Naegle mused peacefully on his longtime companion. Between organizing protests and ceaselessly fighting for the advancement of human rights, Rustin collected European religious art, pieces from his travels in Africa, and items bought and donated from refugee camps he had visited as a humanitarian.
According to Naegle, Rustin loved these objects because they were totems to how people expressed themselves, a living testament to their feelings.
“Bayard was somebody who grew up at time when there were teachers teaching literature and fine art in the public school system,” Naegle said. “He was very well-rounded in the arts and in the sciences. That is something he carried with him throughout his life.”
Establishing a legacy
Rustin’s memory and legacy are being revived now through renewed interest in his contributions. Just as gay marriage has passed in New York State and other locales, the public’s growth towards greater fairness has paralleled the realization that Rustin’s work can no longer be ignored.
Many say he was often pushed aside by other civil rights leaders and left out of historical accounts of their golden era because he was gay. Things have changed. Rustin has even been recognized by President Obama, who will posthumously award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom later this year for his tremendous service.
“Actually it is a sign of how far society has evolved in the decades since Rustin operated as an openly black, gay male leader during the Civil Rights Movement,” Naegle said.
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.