During the ArtRage exhibition of FINDING YOUR POWER, we are celebrating some of those Americans Who Tell the Truth with events highlighting their accomplishments. We will screen the 90 minute documentary, BROTHER OUTSIDER and Professor Paula C. Johnson will introduce the film and facilitate a discussion afterwards.

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) American leader in social movements for
civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
“First, what is the dynamic idea of our time? It is the quest for human dignity
expressed in many ways—self-determination, freedom from bigotry,
and equality of opportunity. If we want human dignity above all else,
we cannot get it while we are on our knees,
we cannot get it if we are running away,
we cannot get it if we are indifferent and unconcerned.”

A master strategist and tireless activist, Bayard Rustin is best remembered as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States. He brought Gandhi’s protest techniques to the American civil rights movement, and helped mold Martin Luther King, Jr. into an international symbol of peace and nonviolence.

Despite these achievements, Rustin was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. Five years in the making and the winner of numerous awards, BROTHER OUTSIDER presents a feature-length documentary portrait, focusing on Rustin’s activism for peace, racial equality, economic justice and human rights. Read more

Paula C. Johnson is professor of law at Syracuse University College of Law. Professor Johnson and Professor Janis McDonald co-direct the Cold Case Justice Initiative (CCJI) at Syracuse University College of Law, which investigates racially-motivated murders committed during the civil rights era.  Johnson co-chaired the SU Senate Committee that resulted in creation of the LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University. She also was co-director of the Sierra Leone UN War Crimes Tribunal Project, within the Center for Global Law & Practice, with Professors Donna Arzt and Lucille Rignanese. She was the founding director of the Law in Zimbabwe Summer Internship Program. In 2003, she received the Unsung Heroine Award from the Syracuse University Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Committee, and the Woman of the Year Award from the Syracuse University African American Male Congress. Read her full bio

Free to the Public