US elementary school could be named after gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin

Rustin was imprisoned many times for his beliefs. During the war, he was jailed for refusing to register for the draft, in 1947 he was forced to work on a chain gang after protesting the segregated public transport system in North Carolina, and in 1953 he was arrested on a morals charge for having sex with men. After this last arrest, Rustin refused to go back in the closet and continue to campaign for civil rights as an openly gay man.

Mark Eckstein Bernado, a local father, is one of the leaders spearheading this project. Speaking to the press he said: “I was shocked to learn that there has never been a school in Maryland named in honour of an openly LGBTQ person!”

“My husband and I are very passionate about this,” he continued. “Not only because we are gay parents, but also because we have a first-grader who will be attending this brand-new school this fall.”

Others have been less passionate about the new school being named after Rustin. Gotthard Saghi-Szabo, another local, wrote in a Facebook post: “Call me old-fashioned, but how on Earth did Bayard Rustin make [sic] it on the list for an elementary school? Who is going to explain to our kindergartners [that] Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested throughout his early career for engaging in public sex with white male prostitutes.”

Rustin has posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was an integral part of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Read our profile of Bayard Rustin here

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