No Easy Answers: Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement

No Easy Answers:  Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement, by Calvin Craig Miller

ISBN 10:  1931798435
Greensboro, N.C. : Morgan Reynolds Pub., 2005

Subject addressed - Bayard Rustin is the subject of this biography, and a figure virtually unknown in most studies about the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1940's through the 1960's.  Rustin was raised by his grandmother, a Quaker, as another of her children and was taught the Quaker ways of nonviolence, respect for all human beings, and a life of service.  He grew up in Pennsylvania and so although he knew racism as a child, it was nothing compared to what he would grow up to experience in the deep south.  As a  young man, he joined a Communist league, but became disillusioned with the group when it came out strongly against racial integration in the miliary.  Although he was a member of a Quaker meeting, deemed by the federal government a "peace church," when World War II broke out and therefore free to be excused from service as a conscientious objector, Rustin did not take this opportunity.  Instead, he simply refused to participate on his own moral grounds.  He was arrested, as he anticipated, and sent to prison in Kentucky where he first encountered the hatred and violence of racism and where he began to build resistance to it using nonviolence. He stayed out of the limelight for the most part, but was specifically removed from any place near it after a 1953 incident in which he was arrested for public indecency because of anti-gay laws.  From that point, he became the Civil Rights Movement's behind the scenes educator on nonviolent resistance--travelling to India to study Ghandian methods, advising Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and masterminding the famous 1963 March on Washington where King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.  Lyndon Johnson called Rustin to Washington after King was assassinated specifically to learn from him how to handle the incident on the national scale.  And in the 1980s, Rustin advised Lech Wolenska's Solidarity movement in Poland. 

Critical Evaluation - Miller tells the story of Rustin's life based on his growing up to be the main organizer behind the March on Washington; the book begins and ends with this event.  His writing is clear and obviously intended for audiences of many ages, but he does not use elementary prose.  The stories are intriguing and colorful, and the tone is obviously very admiring of this individual.  Miller certainly includes Rustin's being gay and the flap it caused among his colleagues and his detractors, but the author is true to Rustin's take on it that it did not define him by any means.  Black and white photos throughout illustrate the life and times of this figure, and although some of the text is somewhat cramped, the layout is easy to follow and visually pleasing.  Overall, an informative and well executed biography for young and old alike.

Reader's annotation - Have you ever heard of Bayard Rustin?  Neither had Martin Luther King Jr., or President Lyndon Johnson, or those looking to have a big showing for civil rights in Washington D.C. in 1963--until Bayard Rustin taught them all how to what they wanted to do all without violence.
Information about the author - Calvin Craig Miller is a biographer whose other books include, Che Guevara: In Search of Revolution, Roy Wilkins: Leader of the Naacp, and A. Philip Randolph: And the African-American Labor Movement.  I have not been able to find any other information on this author.
Genre - YA nonfiction

Curriculum Ties - Social studies (history of gay civil rights), History
Booktalk ideas - 

1. Introduce the Quaker concepts of service and nonviolence and ask where these might show up in history that the kids already know about.  Place Rustin in that picture for them, most likely for the first time, as King's adviser.
   
2. Read the short section describing what Rustin had to go through to organize the March on Washington.
   

Reading level - 12+  Although this book is readable easily by 12 year olds, the subject and prose are also fascinating and engaging for readers through high school.

Challenge issues - homosexuality

Challenge defense ideas:

• Librarian must read the book carefully and include it as a resource intended for older teens.
• Librarian greets students and regularly discusses their reading choices; she provides individualized, age-appropriate guidance in book choice.
• Explain the ways in which the librarian accompanies and guides younger students looking for books, and knows students well as individuals. 

Why I included this book - The book is informative on so many different levels--Quaker values and the Quaker contribution to U.S. History, Rustin's deep influence on the entire nonviolent Civil Rights Movement worldwide, gay rights issues.  It's equally as broadly appropriate for different audiences.  I include it for these reasons and because the more teens know about what was happening behind the scenes in big historical shifts, the more they can imagine themselves active parts of these movements in democracy, whether or not they're born leaders.