Colman Domingo To Play Enigmatic Gay Architect of the Civil Rights Movement in Director George C. Wolfe’s ‘Rustin’
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NETFLIX announced today that Award Winning actor Colman Domingo has been cast as the Bayard Rustin in director George C. Wolfe’s Rustin. The film will be produced by Higher Ground Productions, President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s production company, as well as executive produced by Bruce Cohen.
Photo: Raul Romo
Rustin tells the story of charismatic, gay, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who overcame an onslaught of obstacles, and altered the course of American history by organizing the 1963 March on Washington.
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Currently the cover subject of the September/October issue of The Advocate, Domingo is coming off a gangbusters 2021. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and NACCP, SAG Ensemble for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; he won Hollywood Critics Association TV Award for Best Actor in a limited series for Euphoria. As well as critically rave reviews his roles in Zola and Candyman.
The Advocate: Colman Domingo is one hot person, and you can take that in so many ways. His career is on fire, which was recently recognized by Out (The Advocate‘s sister magazine), which included him in their annual Out 100 list. Domingo turned heads for his role in the Golden Globe-nominated film If Beale Street Could Talk (based on James Baldwin’s novel), starred in HBO’s spicy new series, Euphoria, and is one of the lead characters in AMC’s hit series Fear the Walking Dead. Domingo also starred in Broadway’s Chicago, directed episodes of FTWD, and wrote numerous theatrical works.
But what makes him especially hot during this month is the fact that as one of Hollywood and Broadway’s busiest and most versatile actors and writers, he turns 50 on Thanksgiving Day, and his attitudes about aging are at once comforting and inspirational.
When I found out that he was going to be 50, I asked him if he’d be willing to talk about the milestone. “You know, I never really thought about benchmarks and age until maybe a few months ago after it dawned on me that 50 was right around the corner,” Domingo said during a phone conversation from his home in Los Angeles. “One thing that I have thought about is that 50 is giving me a chance to step into manhood again. What I mean by that is that during my 30s, I started to feel more mature and confident about a future for myself. And now, at 50, I realize that I don’t have much more time to waste, and that I need to make every moment count moving forward and be more deliberate in making choices that make me happy.”
Realizing the value of time and the fragility of mortality is inherent to Domingo and something he contemplates every day. “I lost my two closest friends when I was young, and my parents both passed away in their early 60s,” he recalled. “When you have these constant reminders about people dying at a young age, I think it helps you become more conscientious about your lifestyle choices, and how you take care of yourself and your body. My parents didn’t have access to the bounty of health and wellness information that we have today, so you can take steps to try and not repeat their fate and help give yourself more years of buoyancy.”
Read the full story here.
2nd February 1964: American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (1912 – 1987), spokesman for the Citywide Committee for Integration, at the organization’s headquarters at Silcam Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, New York City. (Photo by Patrick A. Burns/New York Times Co./Getty Images)
The architect of the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin remains an enigmatic figure.
NPR: Those who knew Rustin remember his charisma, his kindness, his slight British accent, and his tendency to break out in song. And they remember him as a master strategist. Rustin’s surviving partner, Walter Naegle, describes him as a “mentor” to Dr. King. Rustin’s belief in nonviolence began when he was a child growing up with his grandmother, a Quaker, in Pennsylvania in the 1920s. It solidified in adulthood after he discovered the work of Indian revolutionary, Mahatma Gandhi. For most of his life, Rustin was the person behind-the-scenes, dreaming up transformative moments like the March On Washington. He wanted others, including Dr. King, to be the face of that dream.
Just a few weeks before the march, Rustin had come under attack. He was an easy target: a socialist, a pacifist who’d refused to fight in WWII and went to prison for it, and a gay Black man at a time of intense homophobia. He’d been attacked before for being gay, each time forcing him to retreat out of the spotlight.
This time, the attacks came on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The segregationist senator Strom Thurmond accused Rustin of being a “sex-pervert” and “draft-dodger.” He hoped by discrediting Rustin he’d also put a stop to the march. But soon after, the director of the march and prominent leader of the civil rights movement, A. Philip Randolph, gave a press conference defending Rustin. And the march went on as planned.
For the remainder of his life, Rustin turned his attention toward issues like economic injustice, gay rights, and anti-colonialism. He received criticism from some within the civil rights movement for his political views, namely, his tepid opposition to the Vietnam War, his conservative stance on things like affirmative action, and his support for Israel. He died in New York City in 1987 on the outskirts of the movement.
History: To the hundreds of thousands who were bused to Washington for the march, Rustin was synonymous with the movement. After all, he was the march’s chief organizer. “Rustin [organized] this march in an eight-week period, without cell phones, without email, without faxes. So he and his team [were] working the phones hard, they [were] typing letters constantly,” says Michael G. Long, editor of I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin’s Life in Letters and co-author of Bayard Rustin: The Invisible Activist. “From what I hear, the headquarters was in sheer chaos all the time. And Rustin thrived in an environment like that.”
Born in 1912 and raised by his grandparents in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Rustin learned Quaker values of nonviolence and peace from an early age. His confidence in those beliefs and in himself were reinforced by his grandmother, Julia Rustin, who affirmed his sexuality—a response that was nearly unheard of at the time. “According to Bayard, she wasn’t concerned so much about him dating men, she was more concerned about the men that he chose,” Long explains.
In 1937, Rustin went to City College of New York, where he joined the Young Communist League because he was attracted to the league’s progressive views on racial issues. But when the group’s focus shifted with the start of World War II to supporting the Soviet Union as opposed to racial injustice in the U.S., Rustin left the organization. Rustin was staunchly against the war, and would be arrested and jailed in 1944 as a “conscientious objector” after refusing to register for the draft.
Rustin shifted his attention to socialism, joining the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) in 1941. The group, led at the time by A.J. Muste, advocated for peace, labor rights and equality for all people—unless those people were gay.
In 1953, after more than 10 years and numerous arrests while working with FOR, Rustin was fired from his position as secretary for student and general affairs when he was arrested in Pasadena, California, for having sex with another man in a parked car and charged with “sex perversion.” It was one of many times that his sexuality would be used against him.
It was through his interest in socialism that Rustin met his mentor, A. Philip Randolph. In 1941, Rustin, along with Randolph and Muste, had proposed a March on Washington to combat the discrimination of black workers in the defense department. Before the march could come to fruition, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that opened up the defense industry to black workers—but the bond between Rustin and Randolph would last for decades.
Randolph who persuaded Rustin to meet with King in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, to show support for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. A young King would be forever changed after his encounter with Rustin.
“Dr. King had read Gandhi, but at that point he hadn’t accepted pacifism as a way of life. And so when Rustin arrived in Montgomery, Dr. King’s home was full of guns,” Long explains. “It was Bayard Rustin, and a few other pacifists, who really encouraged Dr. King to accept pacifism as a way of life.”
At the urging of Rustin, pacifism and nonviolence would become cornerstones of the Civil Rights Movement. But the meeting would mark the beginning of a long, sometimes tenuous relationship between the two.
When they met, King was aware of Rustin’s sexual orientation, and of Rustin’s 1953 arrest on a morals charge. However, Rustin showcased brilliant strategies and organization skills—areas where King, while a rousing speaker and a strong leader, wasn’t as strong. So Rustin’s sexual orientation was overlooked—at least for the time being.
Randolph, King, and Rustin had begun arrangements to march at the Democratic National Convention of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and his running mate Lyndon B. Johnson in Los Angeles, protesting the party’s lackluster position on civil rights. In response, Democratic leadership sent black congressman Adam Clayton Powell to stop the march before it happened. And he used Rustin’s sexual orientation as his weapon.
Prior to the convention, Powell sent an intermediary to threaten King, telling him that if they proceeded with the march, he would accuse King of having an affair with Rustin, not only killing the march but also dealing a possibly fatal blow to the movement as a whole.
King decided to distance himself from Rustin. Rustin’s reluctant resignation from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference marked one of few times that King lost a battle to fear.
“It was a personally painful situation for him, I think, because he was disappointed that Dr. King didn’t stand up for him or didn’t have more backbone,” says Walter Naegle, Rustin’s partner at the time of his death in 1987. “But, in all fairness to Dr. King and to Bayard, Bayard understood that this was a political move and it was probably better for Dr. King to do what he did politically speaking, in terms of the movement.”
Variety: The film tells the story of gay, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who organized the 1963 March on Washington. President Obama posthumously awarded Rustin, an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. and participant in the first “Freedom Rides,” with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Dustin Lance Black, who won the Academy Award for best original screenplay for 2008’s Milk, will write the film and serve as a producer.
In addition to Domingo, Audra McDonald, Chris Rock, and Glynn Turman have been announced to join the cast. McDonald is set to portray Ella Baker. While Chris Rock will play activist Roy Wilkins, and Glynn Turman will play A. Philip Randolph.
Rustin was the subject of the 2003 documentary Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin.
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Colman Domingo is a 2021 Film Independent Spirit and NAACP Award nominee as well as a SAG Ensemble nominee for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He recently won The Hollywood Critics Award for best Actor in a limited series for Euphoria. The Tony, Olivier, Drama Desk, and Drama League Award nominated actor, director, writer and producer recently received his Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Ursinus College as well as was names as one of the 2021 Stonewall Vision award recipients this year.
This year he was seen in A24’s Zola, Vertical Entertainment’s The God Committee and Universal’s Candyman.
Last year, he returned to HBO’s Euphoria for a very special Christmas episode earning him rave reviews, which earned him a HCA TV Award. He can currently be seen in AMC’s Fear The Walking Dead, and as the host and creator of AMC.com’s Bottomless Brunch at Colman’s. His production company Edith Production is currently adapting his play Dot as a TV Series for AMC STUDIOS’s ALLBLK.
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Additional credits include Barry Jenkins If Beale Street Could Talk, Steven Spielbergs’ Lincoln, Lee Daniel’s The Butler, Ava DuVernay’s Selma and Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation.
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As a writer, his plays and musicals include Dot (Samuel French), Wild with Happy (Dramatist Play Service) and A Boy and His Soul (Oberon Books), the Tony Award nominated Broadway musical Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and Geffen Playhouse’s groundbreaking musical Light’s Out: Nat King Cole.
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His plays have been produced by The Public Theater, Vineyard, La Jolla Playhouse, Humana Festival of New American Plays, New York Stage and Film, A.C.T, The Tricycle Theater in London, Brisbane Powerhouse in Australia, among others.
He is the recipient of a Lucille Lortel, Obie, Audelco and GLAAD Award for his work..
He is currently writing a new musical for The Young Vic in London/ Concord Music.
In addition, he just joined the faculty of University of Southern California, School of Dramatic Arts as a Professor of acting, after having served as a Juilliard School Creative Associate and a faculty member of the Yale School of Drama.
