In honor of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, PBS’ POV series has made its Bayard Rustin documentary, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, available for FREE streaming on the POV site.
Combining non-violent resistance with organizational skills, Rustin was a key adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. Open about his homosexuality, which he was persecuted for, he continued to fight for equality.
An expert organizer of protests, Rustin met the young civil rights leader King in the 1950s and began working with King as an organizer and strategist in 1955. He assisted King with the boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956.
But most famously, Rustin was a key figure in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King delivered his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963.
During his 60-year career as an activist, Rustin formulated many of the strategies, including nonviolent resistance, that propelled the American civil rights movement. But his open homosexuality forced him to remain in the background, marking him again and again as a “brother outsider,” hence the title of the film.
On August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama named Bayard Rustin a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
To commemorate Rustin’s life work, PBS is streaming Brother Outsider for FREE, but for only 2 DAYS! So you don’t have a lot of time to watch it – for free anyway.
The free stream is made possible through the World Channel series America ReFramed.
Watch the 2-hour documentary, directed by Nancy D. Kates and Bennett Singer, below:
Watch America Reframed: Brother Outsider on PBS. See more from WGBH Specials.
