Art Doc of the Week | Freedom Fighters & Friends: Bayard Rustin & James Baldwin

In the wake of the massacre in Orlando, we’ve been predictably inundated with social-media hot takes and thought-free think pieces. How do we swim through the hypocrisy of religious and political figures who’ve contributed to a climate where trans people can’t take a piss without breaking some idiot law, fundraising is conducted through fearmongering about queer folk decimating society, religious institutions across multiple faiths and practices preach hellfire and damnation for queer folks and those who won’t stand up to them – the same people behind all that vitriol are now offering empty performances of empathy and compassion: “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” Political hay is being made and social currency stacked through photo-op largesse, and many of us fall for the symbolic over the regressive political substance that has been repeatedly demonstrated and is still being perpetuated/in effect.

Bayard Rustin and James Baldwin. Image courtesy Associated Press.

In this month of queer pride celebrations that are already clouded by death and blood, we can turn to the past for examples of religious beliefs in the service of progressive politics, and examples of sharp critical thinking applied to both structural forces and bigoted attitudes. The documentary Freedom Fighters: Bayard Rustin & James Baldwin gives us examples. The documentary is a look at the friendship of literary giant James Baldwin (one of America’s premiere novelists, essayists, cultural critics and thinkers) and Bayard Rustin, the openly gay man whose Quaker beliefs led him to become one of the most important social and political activists of the 20th century (he organized the historic 1963 March on Washington), but who was almost lost to history due to homophobia.

Both men lived at the intersection of Blackness and queerness. Each had a profound sense of spirit and Spirit. And this brief but information loaded documentary not only sketches in who they were and why they remain important but give us some blueprint on how to tackle the issues currently before us.

Previously on Art Doc of the Week:

Top photo courtesy Getty Images.
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