Announcing Rustin's Challenge
A forthcoming new collection of the writings of Bayard Rustin, challenging the shibboleths of the Left and with commentaries from contemporary writers connecting those challenges to the present.
There was no more trenchant and substantive critic of the Left from the Left in the 1960s and 1970s than Bayard Rustin. Some liberals and leftists today valorize Rustin on the basis of his multiple oppressed identities and civil rights organizing. On the other hand, many others dismiss him for being compromised by his commitment to the Democratic Party or by his deep suspicion of the new forms of left activism that appeared in the mid-1960s.
While Rustin certainly made some strategic mis-steps later in life, his challenges to the New Left, Black Power, and a regressing liberal establishment from 1964 until his passing in 1987 were insightful, cutting, and often quite prescient. At a time when the Left is in dire need of self-reflection and reorientation, Rustin’s work has gained a new relevance and urgency.
In a forthcoming collection of Rustin's writings from this period, we've gathered together articles and speeches that represent Rustin's Challenge to the Left of his day. Some of the pieces of Rustin’s writing that we’ve chosen for inclusion have been published before, but only in pamphlets or newspapers from many decades ago. Some will be published for the first time here. We are excited to be bringing Rustin’s views forth for a new generation, in the hopes that they will spark a wide-ranging reconsideration of left politics.
We're also putting together short commentaries on these pieces by Adolph Reed, Jr., Jennifer Silva, Les Leopold, Mark Dudzic, Jennifer C. Pan, John-Baptiste Oduor, and many others, all contextualizing Rustin's challenge and demonstrating its continuing applicability.
This will be the first book put out by Damage. We are currently taking pre-orders of Rustin's Challenge, which will be out at the end of this year. It would be extremely helpful to have your pre-orders now so that we can get a sense of what size print run we should pursue. So if you’re interested in getting a copy (for the low price of $20), please support this cause with a pre-order now.
Still hampered by all of the features Rustin criticized two generations ago, the Left today is in need of some deep self-assessment, and to our minds, there is no better person to help with that task than Bayard Rustin.
