BAYARD RUSTIN

A moving and informative biography about an early activist and key player in the civil rights movement. Born in 1912 to an unwed teenager, Rustin was raised by his Quaker grandparents to be a pacifist. Haskins (Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, p. 1401, etc.) portrays Rustin, whom Senator Strom Thurmond attacked as a ``draft dodger, a homosexual, and a Communist,'' in a sympathetic manner, and recounts how Rustin ``had an unparalleled genius for organizing and an unwavering commitment to civil and human rights'' throughout his life. That genius for organizing- -groups, protests, and marches—from the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 to the March on Washington in 1963, led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Readers will come away from Haskins's book with an admiration for a man in whose humble origins were the seeds of leadership in the fight for equality and justice. (notes, index, not seen) (Biography. 10+)