Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama was the first African-American president of the United States. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.
Bayard Rustin Challenged Progressive Orthodoxies
Bayard Rustin, a trusted adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was a towering figure in the fight for racial equality.
Remarkably for a man of his generation and public standing, he was also openly gay. When Mr. Rustin died in 1987, obituaries downplayed or elided this fact.
Emblematic of this erasure was this paper, which made only passing mention of his homosexuality and obliquely described Mr. Rustin’s longtime partner as his “administrative assistant and adopted son.” In the decade since President Barack Obama awarded him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, there has been a welcome resurgence of popular interest in Mr.
Rustin’s extraordinary life. He was frequently invoked in commemorations of the march’s 60th anniversary last month and will be the subject of a feature film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s company that will come out later this year.
