Black History Month Biographies
While there are many well-known leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, there are perhaps far more unsung heroes who worked tirelessly and conscientiously behind the scenes. Bayard Rutin (March 17, 1912-August 24, 1987) was undoubtedly among this latter group who just recently, many years after his service and death, is becoming a more familiar presence in the lexicon of great American reformers. This is very likely due to a number of biographies, plays and documentaries about his life and work, especially the recent biographical film, Rustin, directed by George C. Wolfe, and starring Colman Domingo in the title role.
Bayard Rustin devoted his life to creating a fairer world, with opportunities and security for all. As a result, he became engaged in struggles for the rights of labor, civil rights in the United States, including gay rights, and freedom causes around the world.
Rustin was a brilliant strategist, a lifelong pacifist, a disciple of Ghandi, an early proponent of non- violent resistance, a close advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and an innovative civil rights activist. Because of his early and brief flirtation with Communism, and his personal life as an openly gay man, albeit a deeply private one, he was willingly relegated to less prominent and less public roles in the movements he helped create and organize. His arrests for participating in civil rights protests and for private lifestyle activities that were against the law at the time, were used by his public opponents to discredit him. Aware that his past activities could hurt the civil rights movement, he willingly continued to work behind the scenes.
Born in 1912 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Rustin was raised a Quaker in his grandparents’ large family. Because his family was engaged in civil rights activism, he grew up hearing about injustice and the need for social reform from a very early age. He attended Wilberforce University, Cheney State Teachers College, and later after moving to Harlem in New York City, City College of New York. A charismatic man and an accomplished tenor vocalist, he earned music scholarships to college and supported himself as a singer in a gospel and vocal harmony group and in in the chorus of some off-Broadway productions.
During his long life of service, perhaps Rustin is best known as one of the chief architects of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom om 1963, along with his long-time colleague, the visionary, A. Philip Randolph. Rustin and Randolph collaborated early and often first working together on various other marches on Washington, D.C. for labor causes and to protest segregation in the armed forces and the defense industry. Rustin organized Freedom Rides; helped to organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; collaborated with Ella Baker, a co-director of the Crusade for Citizenship; and helped organize a group called “In Friendship” to provide legal assistance to tenant farmers threatened with eviction. He later became the head of the AF-CIO’s A. Philip Randolph Institute which promoted integration of formerly all-white unions and encouraged the unionization of African American workers. During the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin served on several humanitarian missions to Vietnam, Cambodia. and Haiti.
Since his death, schools, research centers for social justice and many streets have been named in his honor. In 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in our country, noting his many accomplishments and describing him as “an unyielding activist for civil rights, dignity, and equality for all.”
Bettye was born April 15, 1936, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. At that time, this area of the state was known for agriculture, primarily the farming of cotton and tobacco. It was notably part of the Jim Crow era of the South and Black youngsters faced deprivation and obstacles on many levels while attending school. Consequently, Bettye’s academic achievements garner greater significance when viewed through the lens of segregation and the educational inequality that significantly lowered the numbers of young people of color graduating from high school or attending college throughout the nation.
Despite these barriers, Bettye attended the prestigious Hampton Institute (a school recognized in the Black Ivy League) in Hampton, Virginia where she earned a BA in Speech and Drama. The next step on Bettye’s educational journey was Oberlin College (the first college to admit black students) in Oberlin, Ohio. Finally, Bettye went on to receive a Doctorate in Education from Rutgers University.
An outstanding poet, author, scholar, and educator, Dr. Spinner taught Advanced English at Moorestown High School, Moorestown, NJ for over 20 years. Her students affectionately referred to her as the “Spin Doctor.” She had the ability to “open the text” for her students to better understand complex literature.
Dr. Spinner served on numerous boards, including the National Council of the Teachers of English (NCTE), the National Achievement Awards in Writing Advisory Committee and New Jersey Governor’s Awards in Arts Education. She received notable achievements awards, including the New Jersey Governors Award for Outstanding English Educator and Best Poem by the Burlington County Cultural and Heritage Foundation. Dr. Spinner was also a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation poet who authored two collections of poetry— “Whispers of Generations” and “In the Dark Hush.” Journalist Bill Moyer consulted her on two of his Emmy award-winning series’ “The Power of the Word” and “The Language of Life.”
Bettye passed away on April 15, 2021. She was married to her late husband, Charles R. Spinner for 60 years and is survived by her children, Charles R. Spinner, III, Stephen A. Spinner, and Kay R. (Spinner) Thompson and her grandchildren.
Every year on September 10th, the Church recognizes the life and work of Alexnder Crummell (March 3, 1819- September 10, 1898), an ordained Episcopal priest, academic, and social justice visionary. Born in New York City to a free woman of color and a former slave, Alexander Crummell was surrounded by activism growing up. Both of his parents were committed abolitionists and the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was published in their home. His father, Boston Crummell, instilled in young Alexander an understanding of his own African roots which would later inspire his son’s Pan-African endeavors. The life his parents led shaped the young Crummell’s values and beliefs throughout his life.
After completing his basic education, Crummell decided to become an Episcopal priest and although he was denied admission to the General Theological Seminary in New York City because of his race, he was able to complete his studies at Yale and was ordained in the United States. With the financial support of Abolitionists, he furthered his education at Cambridge University and it was here in England that his early interest in Pan-Africanism was honed.
After moving to Liberia in 1853, with the goal of educating the local people and converting them to Christianity, he sought to convince the Americo-Liberians who were at this time governing the former colony for free American former slaves, to join him in persuading Black people in the United States and the West Indies to return to Africa, make it their permanent home and convert all to Christianity. While the work of educating and converting continued, Crummell’s Pan-African ideas never received sufficient support. Black Americans were just beginning the fight for equality in the only country they ever knew and were more interested in gaining equal rights at home than going to colonize or convert Africans.
Once he accepted that his vision and enthusiasm for a Pan-African society were not shared, Crummell returned to the United States. He was called as pastor for St. Mary’s Episcopal Mission in Washington, D.C. in 1875. Crummell and his congregation eventually founded St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the first independent Black Episcopal Church in the nation’s capital, where he remained as pastor until his retirement in 1894.
In addition to devoting his life to ministry, Crummell also worked unceasingly for the abolition of slavery, racial solidarity, Black Nationalism, and for self-help and economic development for Black Americans. Although his ideas on Pan-Africanism never quite materialized, his views greatly influenced important Black American leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Paul Laurence Dunbar and W.E.B. DuBois. Toward the end of his life, he founded the American Negro Academy, the first organization to support Black scholars. His life and work have been widely recognized: His private papers are held by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library branch in Harlem; the Alexander Crummell School in Washington, D.C. was named for him; Queen College, Cambridge established scholarships for disadvantaged students in his name; Yale awarded him an honorary master’s degree; and the Episcopal Church honors him with a feast day on September 10th.
Prayers for Black History Month
Creator, we lift up and thank you for our Black siblings who have shaped history. We pray that the learning happening this month in schools, homes and workplaces will be meaningful and deep-rooted. We pray for open hearts and minds, and spirits willing to learn and be transformed by you. May this month be a time of curiosity and sharing, conversations and celebrations, challenge and encouragement. Loving God, help us to dig deeper, look closer, and think bigger. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Prayer by Canon Carla Robinson, The Episcopal Church in Western Washington, Seatle, Washinton.