Bayard Rustin may receive a posthumous pardon from California legislators for a charge of lewd vagrancy. Due to the “morals charge” which was used to target homosexuals, Rustin was forced to register as a sex offender. He died in 1987 while still bearing the label, reports the Washington Post.
In January 1953, Rustin was charged when he was caught having sex with two men in a parked car. He’d just completed a speech in Pasadena as part of a lecture tour centered on anti-colonialism advocacy in West Africa, according to HuffPost. He served 60 days in a Los Angeles County jail before returning back to his home base located in New York.
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The anniversary of his arrest was marked on January 21. To highlight that day, State Sen. Scott Wiener, chair of California’s legislative LGBTQ caucus, and Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, chair of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus, formally asked Gov. Gavin Newsom during a news conference to pardon Rustin.
As a result of Rustin’s arrest and charge, many publicly distanced themselves from the activist. Subsequently, he was removed as a member from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace organization. It didn’t help matters when Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina read Rustin’s Pasadena’s arrest file into the Congressional Record.
