A gay civil rights leader will be honored with a march in Superior Tuesday. It will commemorate the life of a man who didn’t get recognition in the US civil rights movement. Monte Stewart reports.

Bayard Rustin was a civil rights activist and chief organizer of the March on Washington in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

UW-Superior LGBTQ Topics Leader Student Jewleah Johnson says Rustin was criticized during the Civil Rights movement.

“He was kind of an unsung hero because he was black and gay and he got flack from both sides. He was not liked by the Black Panthers and he was kind of a minority within a minority there.”

Johnson says she was looking to have a memorial march this semester and decided on Rustin because people don’t know who he was or what he did.

“We’ve been celebrating a lot of white heroes for gay LGBT folks so I thought it would be good to bring in some different intersectionality into the program and really look at people who aren’t as celebrated.”

Johnson says the slogan is: “Remember your past and be a part of the future.” “We really want to inspire students and faculty and staff and community members to remember people who aren’t necessarily written in the history books and then be a part of building a better future on campus and in the larger world.”

Johnson thinks last week’s election of helped equality rights. “We made a lot of strides forward for LGBT. If we can keep on that road I think it will be getting better gradually, but we still need to keep working and keep plugging away at it and make changes.”

Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin will become the first openly gay member of the upper chamber when she’s sworn in next year.

The Bayard Rustin Memorial March on Tuesday will gather at 3 pm at Erlenbach Area in Swenson Hall at UW-Superior and march to the Superior Courthouse. People can find more information about the Bayard Rustin Memorial March group on Facebook.

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