Introduction of the Bayard Rustin Stamp Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduce the Bayard Rustin Stamp Act. This bill would direct the United States Postmaster General to issue a forever stamp to commemorate the life and work of Bayard Rustin. Representative Ritchie Torres is co-leading this bill.
Born in 1912, Rustin became one of the most important leaders in the 20th century civil rights movement. At a young age, Rustin learned the values of nonviolence and peacekeeping from his grandparents' Quaker faith, and he would continue to build these values into his life as a civil rights movement leader.
Rustin attended City College of New York, where he joined a progressive club that aimed to remedy racial issues during turbulent times. His time with the club was short-lived, but it inspired him to join the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization that became a champion for labor rights, equity and world peace.
Rustin's time with the Fellowship of Reconciliation led him to become a leader in the 1947 ``Journey to Reconciliation,'' where white and Black people across the South rode buses together to challenge segregation laws, a precursor to the Freedom Rides.
Rustin was an advisor in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s inner circle as King advocated pacifism and nonviolence for achieving equal treatment for African Americans. Rustin applied his brilliant strategic mind to execute aggressive, peaceful action in the civil rights movement and throughout his life as an activist.
Rustin's most important role was as the chief organizer of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration ever organized at the time, in which a quarter of a million people turned out to demand civil rights for African Americans.
In the years after the civil rights movement, Rustin, a gay man, inspired others to advocate for and achieve rights for LGBTQ+ people. He remained a strategist and public speaker for workers' rights movements, including co-founding the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an organization for Black trade union members. Rustin remained committed to promoting social good, and advocating for the disenfranchised, until his death.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
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