Editing Bayard Rustin (section)

===From protest to politics===
{{anchor|From Protest to Politics}}

In the spring of 1964, Martin Luther King was considering hiring Rustin as executive director of SCLC but was advised against it by [[Stanley Levison]], a longtime activist friend of Rustin's. He opposed the hire because of what he considered Rustin's growing devotion to the political theorist [[Max Shachtman]]. Other SCLC leaders opposed Rustin due to his sexuality.<ref>[[Taylor Branch|Branch, Taylor]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=CUI6tY9RJUYC&q=shachtman ''Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965''] (Simon & Schuster, 1999), pp. 292–293. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160406210727/https://books.google.com/books?id=CUI6tY9RJUYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=pillar+of+fire&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NI0HVZrZMsHaUsWWgaAP&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=shachtman&f=false |date=April 6, 2016}}.</ref>

At the [[1964 Democratic National Convention]], which followed [[Freedom Summer]] in Mississippi, Rustin became an adviser to the [[Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party]] (MFDP); they were trying to gain recognition as the legitimate, non–[[Jim Crow]] delegation from their state, where blacks had been officially [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] since the turn of the century (as they were generally throughout the South) and excluded from the official political system. DNC leaders Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey offered only two non-voting seats to the MFDP, with the official seating going to the regular segregationist Mississippi delegation. Rustin and the AFL–CIO leaders urged the MFDP to take the offer. MFDP leaders, including [[Fannie Lou Hamer]] and [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]], angrily rejected the arrangement; many of their supporters became highly suspicious of Rustin. Rustin's attempt to compromise appealed to the Democratic Party leadership.<ref name="perlstein" />

[[File:Bayard Rustin NYWTS 2.jpg|thumb|left|267px|Rustin, 1965]]

After the passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]], Rustin advocated closer ties between the civil rights movement and the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], specifically the party's base among the white working class, many of whom still had strong union affiliations. With [[Tom Kahn]], Rustin wrote an influential article in 1964 called "From Protest to Politics", published in ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]'' magazine; it analyzed the changing economy and its implications for African Americans. Rustin wrote presciently that the rise of automation would reduce the demand for low-skill high-paying jobs, which would jeopardize the position of the urban African-American working class, particularly in northern states. He believed that the working class had to collaborate across racial lines for common economic goals. His prophecy has been proven right in the dislocation and loss of jobs for many urban African Americans due to the restructuring of industry in the coming decades.
Rustin believed that the African-American community needed to change its political strategy, building and strengthening a political alliance with predominately white unions and other organizations (churches, synagogues, etc.) to pursue a common economic agenda. He wrote that it was time to move from protest to politics. Rustin's analysis of the economic problems of the Black community was widely influential.<ref>[[Staughton Lynd]], another civil rights activist, responded with an article entitled "Coalition Politics or Nonviolent Revolution?"</ref>

Rustin argued that since black people could now legally sit in the restaurant after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they needed to be able to afford service financially. He believed that a coalition of progressive forces to move the Democratic Party forward was needed to change the economic structure.<ref name="chandra">{{Cite web|url=https://brooklynrail.org/2004/01/books/bayard-rustins-life-in-struggle|title=Bayard Rustin's Life in Struggle|last=Chandra|first=Mridu|date=January 1, 2004|website=The Brooklyn Rail|language=en-US|access-date=February 9, 2020}}</ref>

He also argued that the African-American community was threatened by the appeal of [[identity politics]], particularly the rise of "[[Black power]]". He thought this position was a fantasy of middle-class black people that repeated the political and moral errors of previous [[Black nationalism|black nationalists]], while alienating the white allies needed by the African-American community. ''Nation'' editor and [[Harvard Law School|Harvard Law]] Professor [[Randall Kennedy]] noted later that, while Rustin had a general "disdain of nationalism", he had a "very different attitude toward Jewish nationalism" and was "unflaggingly supportive of [[Zionism]]".<ref name="The Nation 2016-01-04">Randall Kennedy, [https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/protest-patronage/ "From Protest to Patronage"], ''The Nation'', September 11, 2003. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160104194411/http://www.thenation.com/article/protest-patronage?page=0%2C3 |date=January 4, 2016}}.</ref>

''Commentary'' editor-in-chief [[Norman Podhoretz]] had commissioned the article from Rustin, and the two men remained intellectually and personally aligned for the next 20 years.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} Podhoretz and the magazine promoted the [[neoconservative]] movement, which had implications for civil rights initiatives as well as other economic aspects of the society. In 1985, Rustin publicly praised Podhoretz for his refusal to "pander to minority groups" and for opposing affirmative action quotas in hiring as well as black studies programs in colleges.<ref>[[Walter Goodman (critic)|Goodman, Walter]], [https://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/21/specials/podhoretz-25years.html "Podhoretz on 25 Years at Commentary"], ''The New York Times,'' January 31, 1985. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305093450/http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/21/specials/podhoretz-25years.html |date=March 5, 2016 }}.</ref>

Because of these positions, Rustin was criticized as a "sell-out" by many of his former colleagues in the civil rights movement, especially those connected to [[grassroots organizing]].<ref>{{Cite news |first=Kenneth |last=Crabb|date=March 24, 2012 |title=Bayard Rustin at 100 |work=The Indypendent |url=https://indypendent.org/2012/03/bayard-rustin-at-100/ |access-date=June 5, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gBH5GRFw-fkC&q=bayard.+sell+out.+grassroots&pg=PA64|title=Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer|author1-link=Jerald Podair|last=Podair|first=Jerald|date=December 16, 2008|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=9780742564800|pages=64, 77}}</ref> They charged that he was lured by the material comforts that came with a less radical and more professional type of activism.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}} Biographer [[John D'Emilio]] rejects these characterizations, and "portrays the final third of Rustin's life as one in which his reputation among his former allies was routinely questioned. After decades of working outside the system, they simply could not accept working within the system."<ref name="chandra" /> However, Randall Kennedy wrote in a 2003 article that descriptions of Rustin as "a bought man" are "at least partly true", noting that his sponsorship by the [[AFL–CIO]] brought him some financial stability but imposed boundaries on his politics.<ref name="The Nation 2016-01-04" />

Kennedy notes that despite Rustin's conservative turn in the mid-1960s, he remained a lifelong socialist,<ref name="The Nation 2016-01-04" /> and D'Emilio argues that in the final phase of his life, Rustin remained on the left: "D'Emilio explains, even as Rustin was taking what appeared to be a more "conservative" turn, he remained committed to social justice. Rustin was making radical and ambitious demands for a basic [[redistribution of wealth]] in American society, including universal healthcare, the abolition of poverty, and full employment."<ref name="chandra" />