With the approval of Barack and Michelle Obama as producers, the biographical film Rustin, which is released this weekend in a few theaters across the country before landing on Netflix, is an exceptional feature film! This film directed by George C. Wolfe repairs a historical injustice towards a man who dedicated his life to fighting… injustice.
With the support of Martin Luther King Jr. and young African-American leaders, Rustin organized the Great Black March on Washington 60 years ago. An event that brought together 250,000 people on the Mall, enabling the adoption of the Civil Rights Act by the American Congress the following year.
And he was also gay. Which probably explains why it was forgotten for a long time. Rustin therefore highlights a double fight: that for equality for blacks, and that of living one’s homosexuality without shame at a time when “we couldn’t talk about that”.
Five years before Stonewall, Bayard Rustin challenges authority and puritanism. He refuses to apologize for who he is: “The day I was born black, I was also born homosexual,” he told King, after being publicly denounced as a “pervert.” by a representative, black and Democratic, in Congress. However, Martin Luther King will defend him and keep him as organizer of the march.
If Rustin deals with an important element of black history that has been buried for too long, the film also offers its lead actor the opportunity to deliver an extraordinary performance! Colman Domingo (Ma Rainey’s, Zola, Euphoria) plays a complex man. Both strong and vulnerable, brilliant and tormented, supportive and lonely. This moving performance will undoubtedly earn Domingo an Oscar selection in the category of best actor in a leading role.
Written by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black (Milk), Rustin recalls an important aspect of social movements before the arrival of intersectionality: there is strength in numbers. In the 1950s, Rustin was a union organizer. He will therefore use his past as an activist to bring together in Washington all the progressive forces of the United States: whites and blacks, poor and rich, workers and intellectuals, young and old, politicians and religious people. He even convinced 1,200 black police officers to monitor the peaceful gathering… without having their weapons with them! A great history lesson.
