Today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday here in the United States. Dr. King was celebrated as an activist who fought for universal justice and equality for all marginalized communities. One of his most famous quotes, frequently used by queer activists, is “”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Notably however, King never spoke about LGBTQ rights publicly. One of King’s closest advisers and protest organizers, Bayard Rustin, was openly gay. Before his death in 1987, Bayard Rustin spoke about King’s views in an interview saying:
“It is difficult for me to know what Dr. King felt about gayness except to say that I’m sure he would have been sympathetic and would not have had the prejudicial view. Otherwise he would not have hired me. He never felt it necessary to discuss that with me. He was under such extraordinary pressure about his own sex life. J. Edgar Hoover was spreading stories, and there were very real efforts to entrap him. I think at a given point he had to reach a decision. My being gay was not a problem for Dr. King but a problem for the movement.”
Rustin goes on to explain that King was focused on the rights of racial minorities, and he was afraid that including queer rights in the conversation could have hurt the progress they had made. Either way, the fight for equality championed by Dr. King continues to echo through the LGBTQ rights movement today.
