BY THOM SENZEE
Her battle cry was inspired by his spirit of self-sacrifice for the greater good: “justice – or just us?” As she accepted the highest award at the inaugural Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors ceremony this week, civil rights leader and educator, Mandy Carter repeated her signature slogan with enough passion to have made Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King – the man for whom openly gay Bayard Rustin quietly served as organizer-in-chief – proud.
“I ask you, will it be justice? Or will it be ‘Just Us?” Carter riled the crowd gathered in a San Diego auditorium.
Carter, who is a founding board member of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), says her life would have been quite different – she may have gone on to be a doctor, having taken some pre-med prerequisites in college – had it not been for a social studies teacher in high school who invited representatives from a Quaker organization to speak about war resistance, non-violence and a surprise invitation of their own.
“The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) introduced me to the idea of activism and service in the non-violence tradition of Ghandi,” she said.
Receiving recognition and awards for activism and service to the LGBT and minority communities is nothing new to Carter.
In fact, according to writer Simon Glickman, Carter counts among her commendations the North Carolina Lesbian and Gay Pride Community Service Award, War Resister’s League Peace Award, Gay and Lesbian Attorneys of Washington, D.C. Distinguished National Service Award, North Carolinians Against Religious and Racist Violence Mab Segrest Award, North Carolina Independent Humanitarian Award, and previously, the Bayard Rustin Award for Political Activism.
By the way, those are just the honors Carter received for activism during the last millennium. In a nod to genuine modesty, she tries not to keep track these days.
“You see, when that high school social studies teacher introduced me to the peace movement and the AFSC, I became familiar and was instilled with three ideas that were new to me, but which I carried throughout my life and career,” Carter recalled during an interview minutes before she took to the lectern at the first-annual Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors, sponsored by the International Court System and NBJC and held at the San Diego LGBT Community Center (The Center).
“They introduced me to the idea of the power of one,” she said. “One person can change the world. They introduced me to the concept of victory through peaceful, nonviolent means. And, perhaps most importantly, they said, ‘oh and by the way, we have a weeklong training camp for peace and nonviolent protest; would you like to come?”
To peace camp in Tennessee she went. That is how, as a teen (and a child raised in orphanages and in foster care), Mandy Carter built a foundation in activism in the tradition of Mahatma Ghandi with the help of white, Southern Quaker “peacenicks.”
A plentitude of unlikely turns during her trek through life and career to the high echelons of American civil rights activism may make Mandy Carter an archetypal recipient of the Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors Lifetime Achievement Award. After all, Bayard Rustin himself was a most unlikely man for his time.
Rustin was an African American Quaker, an accused communist, an openly gay man and as Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors Award of Appreciation recipient (and San Diego LGBT Weekly publisher) Stampp Corbin noted, a draft dodger. During his acceptance remarks, Corbin pointed to a blow-up image of a Life magazine cover from Sept. 6, 1963 set atop an easel on the stage of The Center’s main auditorium.
“Because he was gay and authentic about it; because he had opposed the Korean War and gone to jail for it; because he was accused of communism; (the leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1960s) said to Bayard Rustin: You can be in the background; you can have your picture on Life magazine; but you cannot have your name on it.”
Yet Bayard Rustin was one of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s closest and most trusted advisers. As is noted on his Wikipedia page, “Despite King’s support, NAACP chairman Roy Wilkins did not want Rustin to receive any public credit for his role in planning the march. Nevertheless, he did become well known. On September 6, 1963, Rustin and Randolph appeared on the cover of Life magazine as ‘the leaders’ of the March (on Washington).”
“I ask you, could you be that authentic?” Corbin inquired of the crowd in attendance at the honors event. “Would you go to jail for your views?” A few hands went up.
Ashley Walker the second of three civil rights leaders who were recognized with a Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors Lifetime Achievement Award for her long career fighting for human rights, including as former executive director of the San Diego Human Relations Commission.
“Nicole Murray Ramirez has it right,” Walker told the crowd as she accepted her award. It’s time for the LGBT community to lift up the name ‘Bayard Rustin’ to the ranks of Harvey Milk, who also deserves our immense admiration,”
Last and far from least of the three lifetime achievement honorees was Mayor Bob Filner, likely only one of two people present at Wednesday’s ceremony who actually met Bayard Rustin.
“This was probably the sweetest man I’ve ever met,” Filner said. “Not only was he a great organizer and civil rights leader, he had a way of speaking that just made you feel great.”
The other person in The Center auditorium who met Rustin in the flesh, was a nationally known local organizer and activist (and columnist for this publication) who, though he downplayed his role, was perhaps most singularly responsible for jumpstarting the Inaugural Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors.
“Co-sponsoring, the National Black Justice Coalition and the International Imperial Court System are going to have the awards here in San Diego next year too,” said Nicole Murray Ramirez, executive director of the International Court System. “But there will also be a national program that is getting off the ground now. That will also be co-sponsored with the National Black Justice Coalition and the International Imperial Court System too.”
Cities expected to host similar Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honors events include Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Los Angeles, among others.
“The GLBT community needs to lift up the name of Bayard Rustin to the level of Harvey Milk, who we have already very rightly raised to the level it is now,” Ramirez said.
