Bayard Rustin’s World War II

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific) Bayard Rustin has been in the public eye a great deal lately, but the stories we hear about him tend to focus on his work during the Civil Rights era, in particular his coordination of the 1963 March on Washington. But what…

Workshop Description

Five 2-hour sessions: Monday 2/3 – Friday 2/7 (3-5pm Eastern / 12-2pm Pacific)

Bayard Rustin has been in the public eye a great deal lately, but the stories we hear about him tend to focus on his work during the Civil Rights era, in particular his coordination of the 1963 March on Washington. But what made me fall in love with him and claim him as both a queer and a Quaker ancestor was reading, I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters. In particular, I am filled with admiration at how he handled his incarceration as a conscientious objector during WWII. In prison, Rustin was everything he was when free: a musician, an organizer, a troublemaker, and a lover. We will read selections of letters to and from Rustin to explore his experience as a gay man wrestling with his sexuality; as a political organizer so effective that wardens fought over who would have to take him on; as a Quaker; as a person of conscience, integrity, and deep faith.

I Must Resist is a big book. We’ll read selections, and focus each of our meetings with a theme, though Rustin’s various identities and commitments are not quite that easy to separate from each other. You’ll get a list of readings before Gathering starts, but I encourage you to read whatever interests you, and, if subjects come up that you would like to discuss in our time together, I invite you to share them.

We’ll spend our time in a mix of reading together; me talking a bit about the day’s reading; and in discussion. We’ll wrap up each meeting with worship or worship-sharing.

My hope is that participants will feel they know Rustin better than they did before. He is a Quaker worth befriending.

Leader Experience

Su Penn has led a popular Gathering workshop on Whitman’s “Song of Myself” multiple times over the past 25 years. She has been a plenary speaker at FGC Gathering and FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering, and has published a number of times in Friends Journal, including the viral 2013 article “We Think He Might Be a Boy,” about her trans son, then five. She will spend the summer of 2025 as Artist in Residence at Pendle Hill.