Although Bayard Rustin is most known for his work with Martin Luther King Jr. and for racial equality, he was also a key figure in the homosexual rights movement.

PBS tells us that he mentored Martin Luther King Jr. and helped create his reputation as an international symbol of peace and nonviolence by bringing Gandhi's protest techniques to the Civil Rights Movement. Because he was an openly gay man, Rustin was threatened, attacked, arrested, imprisoned, and lost jobs in leadership positions in his fight for peace, equality, and human rights.

Rustin never tried to disguise who he was, even when it was unpopular and, at times, dangerous to do so, since he believed the next civil rights battle would be for the LGBT community. Later in life, he openly discussed how anti-gay prejudice had influenced his work, actively advocated for the homosexual community, and testified in support of New York City's gay rights bill. Rustin tried to bring the AIDS problem to the NAACP's notice in the 1980s, forecasting that "the barometer of human rights in the United States was Black people twenty-five, thirty years ago." That isn't the case now. The yardstick for measuring people's character in terms of human rights is now.