Rustin (film)

Rustin is a 2023 American biographical drama film directed by George C. Wolfe, from a screenplay by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black, and a story by Breece about the life of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground, the film stars Colman Domingo in the title role, alongside Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, Gus Halper, CCH Pounder, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Johnny Ramey, Michael Potts, Jeffrey Wright, and Audra McDonald. It is based on the true story of Rustin, who helped Martin Luther King Jr. and others organize the 1963 March on Washington.

Rustin premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023, and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13, 2023. The film received a limited theatrical release on November 3, 2023, before being released on Netflix on November 17. The film received generally positive reviews, with Domingo's performance garnering numerous accolades including nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and SAG Award for Best Actor.

In 1960, as the civil rights movement fights for racial equality across the United States, activist Bayard Rustin urges Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a protest ahead of the Democratic National Convention. New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins, critical of King's rising popularity and Rustin's influence, threaten to accuse King of a homosexual relationship with the openly gay Rustin, leading to Rustin's resignation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Three years later, Rustin remains alienated from King and much of the movement, but his commitment to nonviolent action is embraced by many younger activists, including Tom Kahn, his assistant and lover. Planning a large-scale march on Washington, D.C., Rustin enlists the help of A. Philip Randolph, the respected architect of demonstrations that led to such victories as ending racial segregation in the armed forces. Despite support from NAACP organizer Medgar Evers, Wilkins rejects Randolph and Rustin's plan, and Rustin begins an affair with Elias Taylor, a married organizer and pastor.

Violence against demonstrators in Birmingham receives national attention and spurs Rustin to leave his work at the War Resisters League, while Evers is assassinated hours after President John F. Kennedy calls for civil rights legislation. Rustin visits King — remembering being assaulted by police himself in 1942 for refusing to move to the back of a bus — and convinces him to lend his support to the march. Wilkins continues to object to Rustin's participation due to his reputation, but Randolph appoints Rustin as his deputy director, fully in charge of organizing the March on Washington.

Gathering a team of volunteers and dedicated activists, including Cleve Robinson and Dr. Anna Hedgeman, at a makeshift office in Harlem, Rustin visits the National Mall but is prevented from meeting with D.C. officials. He warns King that they have made powerful political enemies, and is forced to accept Wilkins' and others' demands that reduce the march to a single day. Rustin and his organizers continue to raise funds and public support, but his affair with Taylor strains his relationship with Kahn.

Senator Strom Thurmond publicly denounces Rustin as a communist, and Powell attempts to embarrass him into stepping down, but Rustin's remarkable efforts to organize a 100,000-person march in seven weeks speak for themselves. After Rustin receives a strongly-worded call from Taylor's pregnant wife, Taylor ends their affair. Thurmond publicizes Rustin's arrest for homosexual activity in Pasadena ten years earlier, but Randolph and King come to his defense.

On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington draws over 200,000 people, gathering in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The massive demonstration culminates in King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and though Wilkins invites Rustin to join the march's leaders at the White House, he remains behind with his volunteers. An epilogue explains that the march was the nation's largest peaceful protest at that time; the Civil Rights Act was enacted nine months later; and Rustin would later meet his lifelong partner, and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom.