Taking part in the Amistad Awards luncheon at the Royal Orleans in New Orleans (from left): Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin; Dr. C. Vann Woodward (standing), Sterling Professor of History at Yale University; Kivie Kaplan, Boston, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and Dr. Charles Wesley, Washington DC, Executive Director of the Association for the Study of Black Life and History. Rustin, Kaplan and Dr. Wesley were honored. Dr. Woodward was guest speaker.

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was an American leader in social movements for Civil Rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement in 1941 to press for an end to discrimination in employment. Rustin later organized Freedom Rides and helped to organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to strengthen Martin Luther King, Jr.'s leadership. He taught King about nonviolence and later served as an organizer for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. After the passage of the Civil Rights legislation of 1964–65, Rustin became the head of the AFL–CIO's A. Philip Randolph Institute, which promoted the integration of formerly all-white unions and promoted the unionization of blacks. During the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin served on many humanitarian missions, such as aiding refugees from Communist Vietnam and Cambodia. At the time of his death in 1987, he was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti. Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested early in his career for engaging in public sex. Due to criticism over his sexuality, he usually acted behind the scenes as an influential adviser to Civil Rights leaders. In the 1980s, Rustin became a public advocate on behalf of gay causes. Later in life, Rustin shifted ideologically towards neoconservatism. On November 20, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

On verso: artist's credit stamp, date stamp, newspaper stamp and newspaper caption affixed.

This object has the following keywords:

• Amistad Awards
• Association for the Study of Black Life and History
• Award Ceremonies
• Bayard Rustin
• Civil Rights Movements
• Dr. C. Vann Woodward
• Dr. Charles Wesley
• Injustice
• Kivie Kaplan
• Lunches
• Male Portraits
• New Orleans
• Racial Discrimination
• Royal Orleans

• Image Dimensions: 6 15/16 x 8 11/16 in. (17.62 x 22.07 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 8 x 9 15/16 in. (20.32 x 25.24 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen