‘He never hid himself’: the incredible life of gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin

Netflix’s Oscar-tipped biopic tells the story of an activist whose significant work was often discounted because of his sexuality Most of you probably did not read about Bayard Rustin in school, the former US president Barack Obama observed at a recent film screening in Washington DC. Why? Rustin lived openly and unapologetically gay in the 1950s. “Imagine that, think about that,” Obama implored an audience at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. “This is someone who …