The powerful true story of Bayard Rustin, the openly gay Black Civil Rights leader who dedicated his life to a quest for racial equality, is finally getting the spotlight. Colman Domingo plays the driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington in a new film from DGA Award and three-time Tony Award-winning director George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). The performance marks the Emmy winner’s first leading role in a feature film.
You can take a look at the trailer for Rustin — and Domingo’s transformation — above. From the back rooms of power to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the film tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement from a never-before-seen perspective.
For director George C. Wolfe, the project was an opportunity to spotlight Rustin as an example to aspire to. “He is a role model for what it means to be an American, what it means to daily, moment-to-moment, commit to democracy, commit to freedom, commit to possibility, commit to discovery, commit to passing on that which you know to other people,” Wolfe told Netflix in an interview conducted earlier this year. “Democracy is a muscle, and if you don’t exercise it regularly, it ceases to function.”
Read on to learn more about Rustin — the film, and the man –– and check out some stills from the movie.
The architect of 1963’s momentous March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was one of the greatest activists and organizers the world has ever known. He challenged authority, never apologized for who he was, what he believed, or who he desired. And he did not back down. He made history, and in turn, he was forgotten. Rustin shines a long overdue spotlight on the extraordinary man who, alongside giants like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Ella Baker, dared to imagine a different world and inspired a movement in a march toward freedom.
Rustin is now streaming on Netflix. New York City mayor Eric Adams recently declared Nov. 3, the film’s theatrical release date, as Bayard Rustin Day. This year, 2023, marks the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Emmy-winning Domingo seizes his leading-man moment in Rustin. The film begins in 1960, when Bayard Rustin is in his late 40s, and at the apex of his activist career. Rustin had the respect of political power players –– even if they turned a blind eye to his homosexuality. Yet with racial violence intensifying and calls for change growing louder, Rustin was thinking bigger and bolder. And he now had a more forceful weapon in his arsenal: a sensational young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.
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Prominent labor union leader Randolph was a mentor to Rustin, helping him see civil rights and economic freedom as intertwined. Randolph and Rustin worked in tandem to plan a march on Washington in 1941, but Randolph called it off after President Roosevelt met some of their demands. As the President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters –– a group representing Black workers in service jobs on trains –– Randolph’s efforts on behalf of workers’ rights yielded significant power and broad alliances, even with white labor groups –– alliances both men knew were key in gaining support for the 1963 march.
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As the film opens, 31-year-old King is a rising star basking in the glow of leading the Montgomery bus boycott, yet struggling to balance his vision and fame with practical realities like hierarchies within the movement. “Thanks in part to Rustin, who furthered King's appreciation for Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance philosophies, King gained the confidence to take bolder action, like demonstrating at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles and later, the March on Washington itself.
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The tough-guy energy Adam Clayton Powell Jr. displays in Rustin is no exaggeration: Powell was a Goliath. Pastor at Harlem’s prestigious Abyssinian Baptist Church, Powell reigned over the New York power structure, first as NYC’s first Black city councilman and eventually the state’s first Black congressman. A powerhouse in the Democratic Party, he racked up wins for civil rights but didn’t hesitate to steamroll people who got in his way.
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Longtime NAACP leader Wilkins identified as a liberal, but was, in practice, moderate and sometimes even conservative who favored working within the system –– so much that some saw him as a sellout. Wilkins saw Rustin –– openly gay and formerly aligned with communist and socialist groups –– as a liability, and initially fought to squash the march.
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Not only was Rustin out and proud at a time when homosexuality could land you in jail, he didn’t go out of his way to hide his lovers either. One such was Tom Kahn, a man many years Rustin’s junior whom Rustin met through the socialist movement. Kahn helped Rustin with both planning and administrative work, but their blurred professional and romantic lines made things messy –– especially when they started living together.
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Horowitz was just 22 when she led a team transporting thousands in and out of Washington via planes, trains, and automobiles, and she did it all with eight weeks to prepare. Good friends with Tom Kahn, she met Rustin through volunteer work with the labor, socialist, and civil rights groups she joined as a Brooklyn College student in the late ’50s.
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Elias Taylor is one of few fictional characters in Rustin: A composite of the closeted lovers Rustin encountered, and a symbol of the struggle some queer people experience while reconciling religion with sexual orientation.
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Dr. Anna Hedgeman, a former teacher turned activist, was the first Black woman to hold a position in a New York mayoral cabinet, and the sole woman on the planning committee for the March on Washington. She advocated fiercely for the inclusion of women speakers in the program.
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Mentor to Rosa Parks and once national director of the NAACP, Baker worked with Rustin and attorney Stanley Levison to form In Friendship, which funded demonstrations like the Montgomery bus boycotts. In her career as a Civil Rights leader, Baker argued in favor of decentralized, group actions versus a reliance on singular charismatic leaders.
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The film’s creative pedigree doesn’t stop there. Directed by Wolfe (who won his first Tony Award for directing Angels in America: Millenium Approaches), Rustin is produced by Academy Award winner Bruce Cohen and Higher Ground’s Tonia Davis, and executive produced by Higher Ground’s Barack and Michelle Obama, Mark R. Wright, Alex G. Scott, David Permut, Daniel Sladek, and Chris Taaffe.
Yes. At the 96th Academy Awards, Colman Domingo was nominated for Best Actor — the first Afro-Latino performer and the second openly gay man to be nominated in the category for playing a gay character.
At the 81st Golden Globes, Domingo was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama, and Lenny Kravitz’s song “Road to Freedom” was nominated for Best Original Song.
Domingo was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, and for Best Leading Actor at the 2024 BAFTA Awards.
In creating a song that would capture the energy of Rustin, Wolfe turned to his Ma Rainey collaborator (and three-time Grammy winner) Branford Marsalis. Marsalis co-wrote “The Knowing,” an original song performed for the film by Ledisi, which will play over the film’s end credits. Marsalis turned to Rustin’s central relationship — between Bayard Rustin and preacher Elias Taylor (Johnny Ramey) for inspiration. “We (Ledisi and I) decided the song would have two dimensions: Part 1 would be sensual — relevant to Rustin’s feelings for Elias — and Part 2 would be aspirational — how their actions would eventually lead to a world where people can simply exist,” Marsalis told Netflix. “She went off to write lyrics and came back with what you hear on the song.”
You can listen to the song on Tudum below:
The Rustin official playlist also features a song by Vic Mensa: “No More Tear Drops,”, featuring Wyatt Waddell and Chicago State University Marching Soul of Chicago's S.W.A.T. Team drumline, was featured in the teaser trailer. Four-time Grammy winner Kravitz, meanwhile, recorded a new original song called “Road to Freedom” for the movie.
You can listen to the full Rustin soundtrack on Spotify and Apple Music.
