AUDIO REVIEW: Bayard Rustin: The Singer

Celebrated recently in the PBS documentary Brother Outsider and the biography Lost Prophet by John D’Emilio (University of Chicago Press), Bayard Rustin (1912–1987) was long overlooked as an architect of the peace and African-American civil rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s. Born into a Quaker community in Pennsylvania, Rustin was openly gay. Historians suggest that this is why he remained behind the scenes, despite key roles as adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizer of the famed 1963 March on Washington, which culminated in Dr. King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. A convinced pacifist and disciple of Gandhi, Rustin was also a gifted singer, having performed with legendary folk musicians like Josh White and Leadbelly. The Singer makes available 1952 recordings of Elizabethan songs and Negro spirituals, which reflect, according to his friend Walter Naegle, Rustin’s “philosophical and spiritual roots” as well as the “impact of his religious training in both the Quaker and African Methodist Episcopalian faiths.” Accompanied by lute and harpsichord, his persuasive tenor voice expresses comfort in “There Is a Balm in Gilead,” and there’s defiantly sassy courage in “You Don’t Have to Ride Jim Crow,” which advocates social disobedience in segregated buses in the South: “Someday we’ll all be free / when black and white sit side by side.” Shining with refined intelligence and spiritual strength, Rustin’s voice continues to inspire, as do his heroic deeds.