Bayard Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1912, and raised there by his grandparents, Julia and Janifer Rustin, who ran a catering business in town. His grandmother was a Quaker and a member of the NAACP; W. E. B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson were guests in the family's home. His hometown has twice had to decide how to remember him.
A marker at his school
In 1995 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania placed one of its state historical markers on the grounds of Henderson High School in West Chester, the school Rustin had attended. It was a quiet honor, eight years after his death. The marker reads:
“Born here, the civil rights leader and pacifist organized the 1963 March on Washington. Head of A. Philip Randolph Institute, 1966-1979. Elected to Henderson High School Hall of Fame.”
Its heading gives his dates as "1910 - 1987." He was born in 1912.
A school in his name
In 2002 the West Chester Area School District announced plans for a new public high school. That May the school board voted 6 to 3 to name it after Rustin, choosing him over the alternative, Maple Shade High School.
Then came the criticism. June Cardosi, one of the board members, objected to what she called Rustin's "un-American" anti-war activity and his brief membership in the Young Communist League in the 1930s. She and others also did not want a high school named for a man who had lived openly as gay. The board reopened the question.
A twelve-person committee was formed to look into it. Its conclusion: "we have not seen, read, or heard anything that would give us reason to change our recommendation." In December 2002 the board voted a second time, and kept the name by the same margin, 6 to 3.
The objections were the same three charges that had followed Rustin all his life: the pacifist who went to prison rather than fight in the Second World War, the young Communist, the gay man. Senator Strom Thurmond had used them against him in 1963 (Arrested, Attacked, Pardoned). Forty years later, in his hometown, they lost.
West Chester Bayard Rustin High School
Construction began in 2003 and cost $46 million. West Chester Bayard Rustin High School opened in September 2006, in Westtown Township just outside the borough. Rustin himself had competed at the Penn Relays; the school that bears his name competes there too.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "West Chester Rustin High School" and "Bayard Rustin," and the sources they cite.
