by Stephen Angell and Leigh Eason<\/p>\n
Recent weeks have seen history-making collaborations among leaders of the African American and LGBT equality movements. In May, the national board of the NAACP endorsed marriage equality for same-sex couples, shortly after President Obama did the same. This month, LGBT leaders joined the NAACP and others in New York City to call for an end to the police department\u2019s \u201cstop and frisk\u201d policy, which has targeted mostly African Americans and Latinos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last four years, with the increase in hate crimes across the country, with states attempting to encode discrimination into their state laws and constitutions,\u201d NAACP President Ben Jealous told the Times, \u201cit\u2019s become clear that, just as Bayard Rustin admonished us all, that we would either stand together or die apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
That comment certainly led many readers to ask, \u201cas who admonished us?\u201d Bayard Rustin\u2019s pivotal role as advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and as organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where King delivered his \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech) should have assured his place in American social and political history.<\/p>\n