In the ’90s I was a founding member of the Black History Club in high school, took Black history courses in college and worked in the minority affairs office in grad school, and yet I did not know who Bayard Rustin was until seeing the 2003 documentary “Brother Outsider.”
That miseducation was not by accident.
Rustin — the man who introduced the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the principles of nonviolence, the man who organized the March on Washington — was gay. Because of his sexual orientation, his contributions to the civil rights movement were not often retold. Since the documentary’s release 20 years ago, there has been a concerted effort to change that, most recently culminating in the 2023 film “Rustin” and the performance of awards season darling Colman Domingo in the title role.
A decade ago, Domingo brought Ralph Abernathy to life in Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” which also included Rustin. Today he is the first Afro-Latino to be nominated for a lead actor Oscar. He is the second out gay man to be nominated for portraying an out gay man.
This intersection has quietly played a significant part in Domingo’s career: He appeared in 2020’s Oscar winner “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” about the life of a queer Black woman, and in 2018’s Oscar winner “If Beale Street Could Talk,” based on a book by James Baldwin, a gay Black man. For his work last year, in addition to being Oscar-nominated for “Rustin,” Domingo is part of the SAG-nominated cast of “The Color Purple,” written by out Black author Alice Walker.