Bayard Rustin and the March on Washington

Summary

Episode Summary: Bayard Rustin and the March on Washington

Throughline (NPR), June 2, 2026
Host: Rund Abdelfattah

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Overview

This episode of Throughline dives deep into the largely unsung story of Bayard Rustin, the man who orchestrated the 1963 March on Washington—one of the most pivotal moments in the American civil rights movement. The episode reframes the event beyond the familiar narratives, spotlighting Rustin’s vision, idealism, and personal struggles. Through first-person accounts and archival audio, listeners are transported into the strategy, conflicts, and triumphs leading up to that historic day.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Re-centering History: Rustin’s Overlooked Role ([01:12]–[03:40])

• While Martin Luther King Jr.'s voice dominates popular memories of the march, Rund Abdelfattah points out the crucial contributions of Bayard Rustin, whose organizational prowess made the event possible.
• Quote (Rund Abdelfattah, [01:12]):
  “But what you probably don't know is there's a man standing behind Martin Luther King Jr... And this moment would never have happened without him. His name? Bayard Rustin.”

2. Bayard Rustin’s Philosophy: Nonviolence and Idealism ([03:40]–[06:18])

• Rustin’s activism was deeply influenced by his Quaker upbringing and the teachings of Gandhi.
• Quote (Bayard Rustin, [05:39]):
  “I regard myself as a soldier, though a soldier of peace. I know the value of discipline and truth.”
• Rustin saw nonviolence as both practical and ethical:
  Quote ([06:06]):
  “They wanted us to talk about violence so they could destroy us. So long as we were adhering to non violence, they could not destroy us.”

3. The Genesis and Purpose of the March ([06:18]–[09:21])

• The march was envisioned not just as a call for racial justice but fundamentally for jobs and economic equality.
• Collaboration with A. Philip Randolph (labor leader) refined the goals to “jobs and freedom.”
• Quote (Walter Nagle, [07:13]):
  “...the project described below must be a massive effort involving coordinated participation by all progressive sectors of the liberal labor, religious and Negro communities.”

4. Organizing Against the Odds ([09:21]–[12:01])

• Rustin was responsible for assembling a diverse coalition (the “Big Six” civil rights leaders and others), securing widespread buy-in, and managing massive logistics.
• The relentless manual work—folding letters, phone calls, and convincing allies—was made more challenging by the era’s lack of technology.
• Quote (Rachelle Horowitz, [11:58]):
  “It was like the dark ages.”

5. Facing Prejudice Within and Without ([10:44]–[17:18])

• Rustin’s openness about his sexuality and past ties to communism led figures like Roy Wilkins (NAACP) to insist Rustin not be the chief face of the march. A. Philip Randolph was named chair, with Rustin as his deputy.
• FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought to smear Rustin using his personal life, passing information to segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, sparking a media firestorm ([15:13]).
• Despite intense pressure, Randolph’s public support secured Rustin’s role.
• Quote (Bayard Rustin, [16:23]):
  “A. Philip Randolph at that point called a press conference and indicated that Bayard Rustin would remain the deputy director and chief organizer of the march...”

6. Women’s Voices and Other Tensions ([12:45]–[13:38])

• The exclusion of women as speakers was an unresolved conflict; despite important female activists’ presence, none spoke from the pulpit due to prevailing norms.
• Quote (Joyce Ladner, [13:16]):
  “There were some preachers who said it was bad luck for a woman to cross the pulpit. It was still an era where male domination was accepted, you know.”

7. Preparing for the World’s Eyes ([13:38]–[14:53])

• Rustin’s insistence on nonviolence extended to training black New York City policemen as marshals.
• Quote (Rachelle Horowitz, [13:38]):
  “He... trained them in nonviolent crowd control, holding hands and encircling people should there be a disturbance.”

8. Moments Before the March ([17:18]–[19:18])

• Anticipation mixed with uncertainty: organizers had “done all the planning” but had no idea if the crowd would materialize.
• Last-minute drama involved John Lewis’s speech, which was seen as too militant and had to be revised.
• Quote (Joyce Ladner, [18:43]):
  “Was like, we've done all the planning. Now we hold our breath and see how it all comes to fruition.”

9. The Day of the March: Success Beyond Imagination ([19:40]–[22:22])

• Performances by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary set the tone.
• Rustin, ever the showman, bluffed to early reporters that “everything is on schedule,” holding up a blank sheet of paper ([20:28]).
• The crowd surpassed expectations—over 250,000 assembled.
• Quote (Bayard Rustin, [21:39]):
  “Fellow Americans, we are gathered here in the largest demonstration... We are the advance guard of a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom.”
• Quote (Joyce Ladner, [22:22]):
  “Looking out at that crowd... I have this kind of feeling that comes up in me. A sense of awe and pride and so on. It feels a certain way and I still get it. I remember thinking very clearly that they support us, they support us.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Bayard Rustin:
  “Since the beginning of this nation, we have attempted to make a moral and psychological analysis of prejudice, the economic and social degradation to which it has led to. And I'm afraid we are still doing so.” ([03:40])

• Bayard Rustin:
  “Well, Mr. Randolph asked me if I would set up the logistics for the march, which I immediately began to do and to get every agency in America... and to contain it. So it was intensely nonviolent.” ([09:00])

• Joyce Ladner:
  “The crowd. It was unimaginable to see 200,000 people anywhere at that time... I remember thinking very clearly that they support us, they support us.” ([22:22])

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Important Timestamps

• [01:12] – Revealing Bayard Rustin’s pivotal but hidden role behind King at the march
• [05:06] – Influence of his grandmother, Quaker roots, and Gandhi
• [06:26] – Rustin’s vision for a march on Washington for jobs and economic justice
• [10:03] – The “Big Six” civil rights leaders and growing movement coordination
• [13:16] – Discussion of the marginalization of women in the movement
• [15:13] – FBI and media attacks on Rustin’s sexuality and political history
• [16:23] – A. Philip Randolph’s public defense of Rustin
• [19:03] – Last-minute tensions over John Lewis’s speech
• [21:39] – Rustin introducing John Lewis and defining the march’s goals on stage

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Episode Tone & Storytelling Style

The episode maintains an engaging, reflective, and urgent tone throughout, mixing narration with primary voices and archival clips. The speakers express admiration for Rustin, touch on the personal sacrifices required by those at the forefront of history, and highlight both the progress made and the obstacles faced—structural and personal.

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This summary brings together the strategic, emotional, and moral landscapes of the March on Washington, restoring Bayard Rustin to his rightful place at the center of the story. For listeners, it reconstructs the event as a collective achievement, driven as much by unsung organizers as by those whose public speeches would echo through history.

Transcript

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[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from NPR and Throughline. I'm Rund Abdelfattah. Each week we bring you stories about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the US that began 250 years ago.

[Bayard Rustin]

Freedom now movement.

Hear me. We are requesting all citizens to move into Washington to go by plane, by car, bus. 250,000 people, black and white, marched on the nation's capital.

[Joyce Ladner]

It nationalized this Southern freedom struggle.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

It was really glorious.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

August 28, 1963 the March on Washington lives in many of our minds as a single moment, a single voice, a single dream.

[Bayard Rustin]

I have a dream that one day my four little children.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

But what you probably don't know is there's a man standing behind Martin Luther King Jr. As he's making this speech just a few feet to his right. He's tall, thin, wearing thick black framed glasses. And this moment would never have happened without him. His name? Bayard Rustin.

[Bayard Rustin]

Bayard. Bayard Rustin.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Today on the show, the story of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, the man behind the March on Washington. That's coming up after a quick break.

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[Bayard Rustin]

since the beginning of this nation, we have attempted to make a moral and psychological analysis of prejudice, the economic and social degradation to which it has led to. And I'm afraid we are still doing so.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In the early 1960s, the civil rights movement to end segregation and institutionalized racism was heating up. Sit ins, boycotts and marches were consuming cities across the South, a movement that was beginning to spread to northern cities, too. And Bayard Rustin was a busy strategist, organizer and political leader.

[Joyce Ladner]

Rustin has this almost utopian idealism.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is John d', Amelio, author of Lost the Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.

[Bayard Rustin]

This is the world that we're aiming for, and as human beings with our

[Joyce Ladner]

moral sense, we can move in that direction.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Central to Bayard's concept of utopian idealism was his dedication to nonviolence, an idea that had been instilled from an early age by his grandma, Julia Davis Rustin, a devout Quaker who had raised him as her own child.

[Walter Nagle]

Julia was, I would say, the primary influence on Bayard, certainly in his childhood.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Walter nagle. Walter was Bayard's partner until Bayard's death in 1987. Later in life, Bayard would say, my activism did not spring from being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me. He was also greatly inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.

[Bayard Rustin]

I regard myself as a soldier, though a soldier of peace. I know the value of discipline and truth.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Gandhi just took things to the next level for Bayard. He believed an empire had been torn down and a nation changed with little more than words and peaceful protest. That was revolutionary for him. And Gandhi's voice would echo through Bayard's activism for the rest of his life.

[Bayard Rustin]

They wanted us to talk about violence so they could destroy us. So long as we were adhering to non violence, they could not destroy us.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

It was a viewpoint that Bayard held fast to in all of his work and especially as he began working on something he'd been dreaming about for a

[Bayard Rustin]

long time, a massive march directed toward and on the nation's Capital. I have long fought for equal opportunity for black workers.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

A march for jobs and for economic

[Bayard Rustin]

progress for all, people for all.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Bayard and a group of organizers presented his dream of a big march to a Philip Randolph, a labor rights leader who was then at the center of the civil rights movement. Randolph called himself a socialist and firmly believed that a decent, well paying job would lead to social and political freedom, especially for black people. For hours they brainstormed, trying to imagine what this march would be, what its goals were, who would come and how they would market it to the world.

[Walter Nagle]

January 1963. The 100 years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation have witnessed no fundamental government action to terminate the economic subordination of the American Negro. Negroes seek, as an integral part of their own struggle as a people, the creation of more jobs for all Americans. Therefore, the project described below must be a massive effort involving coordinated participation by all progressive sectors of the liberal labor, religious and Negro communities.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Walter was there for all the planning. They developed a two day proposal.

[Bayard Rustin]

The first day was to be sit ins in the congressional offices of those who were opposed to civil rights legislation.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This is Norman Hill, then the national program director of the Congress of Racial Equality.

[Bayard Rustin]

The second day was to be a mass demonstration.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

There were two main objectives.

[Walter Nagle]

A the project should call for action by the President and Congress listing concrete demands. B we should emphasize the theme that no worker in America is generally free. We now demand a program of action in 1963 that will ensure the emancipation of all labor, regardless of color, race or creed.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In other words, jobs and economic justice were going to be the focus of the event. Randolph liked it and it was decided they would host a march on Washington that summer. So now all that was left to do was, you know, pull off the most ambitious protests in American history in just a few months.

[Bayard Rustin]

Well, Mr. Randolph asked me if I would set up the logistics for the march, which I immediately began to do and to get every agency in America, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish intellectuals, labor movement, everybody involved, and to contain it. So it was intensely non violent.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

In the spring of 1963, Bayard assembled a team to begin organizing the march.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

He made us feel like we were players in history and that he took us seriously.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

People like Rachelle Horowitz, who traveled around the country convincing people that the march should take place.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

I was the transportation director of the March on Washington and also I assisted Bayard generally during the march.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

They got buy in from a lot of people and set up meetings with heads of the civil rights movement, including AKA the Big Six, which Included a. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, the leader of

[Bayard Rustin]

the national association for the Advancement of Colored People, Whitney Young, leader of the National Urban League, James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Martin Luther King Jr. President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And at the same time, Bayard was making tweaks to the proposal. He changed the mission statement to include

[Bayard Rustin]

two goals, jobs and freedom.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Freedom, meaning racial justice. President John F. Kennedy was working on a civil rights bill, and Bayard figured the Big Six wouldn't want to take attention away from it, especially since Kennedy had already made it clear he opposed the march.

[Bayard Rustin]

He indicated that there might be violence which would set back the cause of civil rights.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

And Bayard made another tweak. He reduced the event from two days to one and then presented the revised proposal to the Big Six. And they were on board. Except Roy Wilkins of the NAACP had one condition. He didn't want Bayard Rustin, a gay former communist, to be the top organizer of the march. So it was decided that Randolph should chair the march.

[Bayard Rustin]

He said he would do so on one condition, that he'd be given the right to name his deputy to do the day to day organizing of the march. And he named Bayard Rustin.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

This wouldn't be the first time that Bayard was pushed behind the scenes. The march was announced to the world in early June of 1963. It was scheduled to take place on August 28, 1963. And then the organizing sped up.

[Joyce Ladner]

We worked six days a week, day

[Bayard Rustin]

and night, engaging in outreach to as many groups and people as we could.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

Folding letters, mailing out mailings, calling people on the phone.

[Joyce Ladner]

Because remember, we didn't have social media. We used mimeographic screens and we used telephones.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

It was like the dark ages.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Word began to spread and they could tell people were interested in coming. Only problem was we didn't know how

[Bayard Rustin]

many people would come.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So they were feeling their way through the dark, trying to plan travel, food, lodging around maybes and what ifs. Disagreements came up along the way. Some were minor.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

Bayard at one meeting announced that the National Council, I think, of Negro women were preparing thousands of sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly. And I joked, oh, peanut butter and jelly. Really the first time he ever got really angry, he said, rachelle, it doesn't spoil. So we weren't going to have people sick on the march.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But other disagreements were more substantial, like the fact that no women were scheduled to speak at the March.

[Joyce Ladner]

I remember Mrs. Hamer speaking so articulately about the problems we were faced, but I don't remember her standing behind the pulpit saying those things.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Author Joyce Ladner had grown up in the heart of the Jim Crow South. At the time, she was busy working with the Student Nonviolent Court Coordinating Committee, or sncc.

[Joyce Ladner]

There were some preachers who said it was bad luck for a woman to cross the pulpit. It was still an era where male domination was accepted, you know.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But everyone involved in the march from the top down agreed on one thing. The march had to be nonviolent. Anything less could spell disaster for the movement.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

Bayard, I think, knew from day one that he was going to ask the New York City black policemen to volunteer as marshals. And then he proceeded every day during the march to take a group of them out in the courtyard of back of the Friendship Building and train them in nonviolent crowd control, holding hands and encircling people should there be a disturbance.

[Bayard Rustin]

We're nonviolent with people who are non violent with us, but we are not nonviolent with anyone who is violent with us.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And Rachelle says activists who had a more militant approach, like Malcolm X, were uninvited. Bayard knew that the march hinged on perceptions. Plenty of people were waiting for it to fail. So the crowd had to remain nonviolent. And the public face of the march also had to be non threatening and wildly inspirational.

[Bayard Rustin]

Let us fight passionately and unrelenting for the goal of justice.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It had to be Dr. Martin Luther

[Bayard Rustin]

King Jr. Let us never fight with falsehood and violence and hate and malice, but always fight with love. So that when the day comes, with

[Narrator/Interviewer]

the march just a few weeks away, things were looking good. Everything was going according to Byard's plan. But J. Edgar Hoover, the notoriously shady director of the FBI at the time, tried to dig up some dirt on people linked to the march. And a gay black socialist, former communist and conscientious objector.

[Walter Nagle]

How many jeopardies can you afford?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Was the perfect target. And Hoover knew exactly who to pass the dirt to.

[Joyce Ladner]

A segregationist senator from South Carolina named Strom Thurmond.

[Bayard Rustin]

Strom Thurmond. On the floor of the United States Congress, attacked by Rustin as being a pervert in a draft dodger.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

A media firestorm ensued. And the big question was, what would happen to Bayard? It was a question that Bayard had faced many times before, including eight years prior when he had worked with Martin Luther King Jr. At a given point,

[Bayard Rustin]

there was so much pressure on Dr.

King about my being gay and particularly Because I would not deny it that he set up a committee to explore

whether it would be dangerous for me

to continue working with him.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

Since then he had effectively been cast out, only returning to the movement to plan the march on Washington. And now it looked like he would be exiled again, except this time.

[Bayard Rustin]

A. Philip Randolph at that point called a press conference and indicated that Bayard Rustin would remain the deputy director and chief organizer of the march. That he had full and complete confidence in the ability of Bayard Rustin and that the march would indeed go forward.

This is from the New York Times of August 16, 1963, which says Negro

Rally aid rebut Senator. That certainly was a turning point in Bayard Rustin's civil rights career. He was given credit for being the organizing architect of the march itself.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

For the first time in his life, Bayer didn't have to retreat. Exposure didn't lead to exile, all because A. Philip Randolph decided to break the cycle. 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. One day left until the march.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

It's very strange. I have a bit of amnesia about how I can't remember how I got to Washington. I think Joyce told me we flew

[Joyce Ladner]

down, we all took trains down to Washington and we all checked into the Stanley Hilton. The one person who didn't take the train down was Ellen Holmes Norton. Because Byrd felt that one person should stay behind to take any last minute calls or whatever.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

What I remember mostly about that day is, you know, running around trying to set things up.

[Joyce Ladner]

It's just a lot of people, people I'd never seen before, leaders like Norm Hill. And I was just so excited whenever I saw someone from Mississippi.

[Bayard Rustin]

There was both great anticipation and also hesitancy and some fear. No one knew exactly what the numbers would be like.

[Joyce Ladner]

Was like, we've done all the planning. Now we hold our breath and see how it all comes to fruition.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

But there was the famous moment when BART came dashing through this big room that we were using at the Statler and he said, where's John Lewis? Get John Lewis.

[Bayard Rustin]

The fact is that John Lewis wrote a speech which was not within the guidelines of what the leadership had agreed to.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

Courtland Cox had put John Lewis's speech out on the table and all the

[Joyce Ladner]

reporters immediately got copies of it.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

And it hit the fan.

[Joyce Ladner]

There's a section in John's speech something like, if violence doesn't stop, we will have no choice but to march through the south the way General Sherman did.

[Bayard Rustin]

August 28, 1963.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

We woke up very early.

[Bayard Rustin]

We had breakfast at the hotel and

[Joyce Ladner]

afterwards we walked over, walked on the Mall over to the side of the

[Bayard Rustin]

march where there was to be a pre march musical presentation. Eight bullets from the back of the Bobby Bush.

[Joyce Ladner]

I remember being there to hear Bobby. We called Bob Dylan Bobby and John Baez sang, as did Peter, Paul and Mary.

[Bayard Rustin]

A number of reporters saw Bayard Rustin and move toward him because at that point being that early in the morning, there was no evidence of marchers. And they asked Bayard Rustin, in effect, where was the march, would it still come off? And so using a British accent, he pulled a piece of paper out of his coat jacket and said, indeed, gentlemen, everything is on schedule. What they didn't know was that the piece of paper was blank. And an hour later the marches began coming into Washington D.C. in historic fashion.

[Rachelle Horowitz]

We were all very ecstatic because the people were just coming in by throngs. They were singing, they were happy and we knew it was going to be a success.

[Bayard Rustin]

Fellow Americans, we are gathered here in the largest demonstration. We are the advance God of a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom. I have the pleasure to present to this great audience young John Lewis Nagorn. In what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. The first demand is that we have effective civil rights legislation.

[Joyce Ladner]

People have asked me often, what was the thing you remember most about the march on Washington? I always say the crowd. It was unimaginable to see 200,000 people anywhere at that time. Looking out at that crowd from a small town in Mississippi, I have this kind of feeling that comes up in me. A sense of awe and pride and so on. It feels a certain way and I still get it. I remember thinking very clearly that they support us, they support us.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

That's it for this week's America in Pursuit. If you want to hear the full length episode about Bayard Rustin, check out the man behind the March on Washington and join us next week when we hear directly from journalists during the Vietnam War.

[Joyce Ladner]

I remember the day after I got there, I. I was asked to a party. There was roses and champagne and all kinds of wonderful things. You'd think you were at home, you know, but then over the edge of the parapet you could see these flares coming up. And the question was whether it was incoming or outgoing. You would never know until it happened.

[Rund Abdelfattah]

The Vietnam War. That's next week. Don't miss it. This episode was produced by Kiana Mohadam and edited by Christina Kim with help from the Throughline production team. Music by Ramtin Adablouei and his band Drop Electric. Special thanks to Julie Cain, Irene Noguchi, Beth Donovan, Casey minor and Lindsay McKenna. I'm Randan Dil Fattah. Thanks for listening.

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