Page 6 - Unsung Herores of Social Justice - Unsung Heroes
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Bayard Rustin
Organizes the
March on Washington
The 1963 March on Washington in the 1960s. So Rustin kept these
became one of the greatest things secret. The march was to
moments of the civil rights be the biggest demonstration ever.
movement. There had never been a He didn’t want anything to get in
protest like it before. The man at the the way.
heart of it was Bayard Rustin. His
One of Rustin’s biggest goals was
job was to organize the march.
making the march nonviolent. That
Rustin was an unlikely person for was something that came from
the job. He did have a long history his religious background. Before
of working for civil rights. But he Rustin, civil
was also gay and a socialist. Those rights leaders
were both dangerous things to be had been
Rustin was an
activist for the civil
rights movement.
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