[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 149 (Monday, August 23, 2021)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              INTRODUCTION OF THE BAYARD RUSTIN STAMP ACT

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                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, August 23, 2021

  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Bayard 
Rustin Stamp Act. This bill would direct the United States Postmaster 
General to issue a forever stamp to commemorate the life and work of 
Bayard Rustin. I introduce this bill with Representatives Mondaire 
Jones and Ritchie Torres. We introduce the bill now to coincide with 
the anniversary of the March on Washington, which occurred on August 
28, 1963, and the anniversary of Rustin's death, which occurred on 
August 24, 1987.
  Born March 17, 1912, Bayard Rustin became one of the most important 
leaders in the 20th century civil rights movement. At a young age, 
Rustin learned the values of nonviolence and peacekeeping from his 
grandparents' Quaker faith, and he would continue to build these values 
into his life as a civil rights movement leader.
  Rustin attended City College of New York, where he joined a 
progressive club that aimed to remedy racial issues during turbulent 
times. His time with the club was short-lived, but it inspired him to 
join the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization that became a 
champion for labor rights, equity and world peace.
  Rustin's time with the Fellowship of Reconciliation led him to become 
a leader in the 1947 ``Journey to Reconciliation,'' where white and 
black people across the South rode buses together to challenge 
segregation laws, a precursor to the Freedom Rides.
  Rustin was an advisor in Martin Luther King Jr.'s inner circle as 
King advocated pacifism and nonviolence for achieving equal treatment 
for African Americans. Rustin applied his brilliant strategic mind to 
execute aggressive, peaceful action in the civil rights movement and 
throughout his life as an activist.
  His most important role was as the chief organizer of the historic 
1963 March on Washington, the largest demonstration ever organized at 
the time, in which a quarter of a million people turned out to demand 
civil rights for African Americans.
  In the years after the civil rights movement, Rustin, a gay man, 
inspired others to advocate for and to achieve LGBTQ rights. He 
remained a strategist and public speaker for workers' rights movements, 
including co-founding the A. Philip Randolph Institute for black trade 
union members. Rustin remained committed to promoting social good, and 
advocating for the disenfranchised, until his death.
  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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