Black gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin was perhaps “the ultimate American,” according to George C. Wolfe, the out director behind the upcoming Netflix biopic Rustin.
Wolfe showed clips from Rustin and discussed the film onstage with out journalist Jonathan Capehart this week at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. Rustin, from Barack and Michelle Obama’s company, Higher Ground Productions, stars Emmy-winning gay actor Colman Domingo as Rustin, a key aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and architect of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at that march.
“I think the ultimate American is someone who does service, someone who has expansive curiosity,” Wolfe, an acclaimed stage and film director, told Capehart. Rustin met those criteria precisely, Wolfe said.
“We all have a responsibility to do something, whatever it is, for those who are in need, and I think he embodied that,” he continued.
Rustin was “a remarkable human being” in many ways, Wolfe pointed out. He was not only a great organizer but a teacher, a Broadway performer, an athlete, and more, the director said. Rustin was fighting segregation even as a teen in Westchester, Pa., he noted.
He added that the film in many ways brings Rustin out of the shadows and into the daylight. “That was sort of the visual journey I wanted to take the audience on,” Wolfe said.
“Bayard claimed all of his space,” the filmmaker concluded.
The film’s cast also includes Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, CCH Pounder, Jeffrey Wright, and Audra McDonald. It’s written by Justin Breece and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk). It will be in select theaters November 3 and will be available on Netflix November 17.
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