"It is fascinating to notice that in the Montgomery boycott the various strands and origins of the idea of nonviolent resistance fused into a newly invigorated practice and theory of immense power. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although he credited his formulation of "massive non-cooperation" to Thoreau, had been exposed to pacifist thought during his studies under the pacifist Allen Knight Chalmers, who was a Gandhian. Another long-time pacifist, Bayard Rustin, secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation since 1935, and later secretary of the War Resisters League, was one of the chief tacticians and organizers of the Montgomery boycott. It was he who counseled the use of nonviolent means at the outset of the boycott. Finally, probably unknown to most of the actors in the drama, there was a precedent for a bus boycott by a black community in the example of the 1892 Memphis, Tennessee, boycott of streetcars by the black community to protest a lynching. This boycott was actively supported by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and was, according to her account, highly effective."
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Activists from the United StatesCivil rights activistsLGBT peopleAnti-war activistsFormer socialists
Original Language: English
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Sources
Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought (1997)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bayard_Rustin
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Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (/ˈbaɪərd/; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African-American leader in the movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania where his family was involved in civil rights work. In 1936, he moved to Harlem, New York City and earned a living as a nightclub and stage singer.
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