Happy 100th Birthday to Bayard Rustin, “Resister Extraordinaire”

Mar 16, 2012

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of the day civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin was born. It’s a milestone in and of itself, but little occasion’s needed to remember the visionary organizer and activist. Rustin was a master strategist who all but created the model of post-World War II nonviolent social movements in the U.S. He championed nonviolent tactics and introduced the Gandhian protest tactics that would become one of the hallmarks of the Civil Rights Movement. He’s best known for organizing the March on Washington in 1963, after which he was anointed the title of ["Socrates"](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/books/the-organizer.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm) of the Civil Rights Movement.