Bayard & Me
- short
- 16'
- English spoken
Bayard Rustin was an important figure in the American civil rights movement. He was one of the main organisers of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963 where King delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. But Rustin’s role in the movement was downplayed in the history books because he was openly gay. Walter Naegle, Rustin’s partner for ten years until his death, tells us about the love of his life.
Walter was 26 and Bayard 63 when their eyes first locked at a traffic sign in Times Square. Their age difference did not affect their love for each other, and neither did their race. More than twenty years before gay people could get married in the United States, Bayard and Naegle managed to become a legal couple through the adoption, with Bayard taking on Walter as his adopted son. Memories and archive material form the core of this love story during two important chapters in American social history.
SK