On August 28th 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
That day, nearly a quarter million people gathered on the national mall to demand an end to the discrimination, segregation, violence, and economic exclusion black people still faced across the United States.
None of it would have been possible without the march's chief organizer – a man named Bayard Rustin.
Rustin grew up in a Quaker household, and began peacefully protesting racial segregation in high school.
He remained committed to pacifism throughout his life, and was jailed in 1944 as a conscientious objector to World War II.
During his two-year imprisonment, he protested the segregated facilities from within.
Wherever Rustin went, he organized and advocated, and was constantly attuned to the methods, groups, and people who could help further messages of equality.
He joined the Communist Party when black American's civil rights were one of its priorities, but soon became disillusioned by the party's authoritarian leanings and left.
In 1948, he traveled to India to learn the peaceful resistance strategies of the recently assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
He returned to the United States armed with strategies for peaceful protest, including civil disobedience.
