Bayard Rustin Day 2026

Organize The Future: Rooted. Rising. Ready. 

Organize The Future: Rooted. Rising. Ready., honors the life, legacy, and enduring relevance of Bayard Rustin through an evening of reflection, dialogue, and artistic expression rooted in justice and human dignity. Building on the spirit and success of our inaugural celebration, this year’s program brings together historians, advocates, and creatives whose work embodies Rustin’s vision of courageous, nonviolent leadership and community care as activism.

Special guests will include Evan Malbrough, Walter Naegle—returning from our 2024 program—and two dynamic intergenerational panel discussions. Together, we invite the community to remember Rustin not only as a historic figure, but as a living call to action—one that challenges us to lead with integrity, imagination, and love.

Special Thank You to the Netherlands Consulate

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Special Thank You to the Netherlands Consulate *

We extend our sincere gratitude to the Netherlands Consulate for their generous sponsorship of Bayard Rustin Day 2026. Your support not only made this gathering possible, but affirmed a shared commitment to human rights, dignity, and global justice—values that Bayard Rustin championed throughout his life.

By investing in this event, you helped create space for reflection, connection, and renewed action across generations of leaders. We are deeply appreciative of your partnership and the vision it represents.

About the Netherlands Consulate

The Netherlands Consulate General in the United States, with major locations in cities like Atlanta, New York, and San Francisco, provides essential services to Dutch and American citizens. They handle passport renewals, visa applications (via VFS Global), and consular declarations. They also strengthen economic ties, support business, and offer emergency assistance.

EVENT hOSTS

SEAN ALLEN
(HE/HIM)

TIM’M WEST
(HE/THEY)

WALTER NAEGLE
(HE/HIM)

KAMA PIERCE
(SHE/HER)

Event Schedule

  • Guests arrive, explore the museum exhibits, and connect in community. This hour allows participants to ground themselves in the broader arc of civil and human rights history before we gather to reflect on how we organize the future. 

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  • Fireside Chat: Sean Allen & Walter Naegle

    Before Bayard Rustin was a master strategist of the Civil Rights Movement, he was deeply formed by his Quaker faith — a tradition grounded in the belief that every person carries an inner light, that love must replace fear, and that justice must be pursued without cruelty.

    In this intimate conversation, Walter Naegle reflects with Sean Allen on the spiritual foundation that shaped Rustin’s moral discipline, strategic patience, and unwavering commitment to human dignity. More than biography, this dialogue invites us to consider what it means to be rooted in light ourselves — and how conscience, courage, and love anchor the work of organizing the future.

  • Lexi Markham (they/them) is a junior at The Paideia School who has been on the Institute's YOU(th) Belong Advisory Board since it's inception in 2023.

  • Young Civic Leaders Panel

    The Civil Rights Movement gave us a blueprint — disciplined organizing, moral clarity, coalition-building, and an unwavering belief in human dignity. But every generation must decide how to build from that foundation without being confined by it.

    This panel brings together Georgia’s next wave of civic leaders — organizers, elected officials, candidates, and advocates — who are carrying forward the spirit of past movements while adapting strategies for a digital, hyper-connected world. Leveraging technology, social media ecosystems, policy innovation, and intersectional frameworks, these leaders are not replicating history — they are innovating within it.

    They rise not in rejection of the past, but in conversation with it — honoring the architecture of earlier struggles while recalibrating for the terrain ahead.

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  • Moderated by Leo Seyij Allen

    The Civil Rights Movement reshaped the nation — yet even transformative movements carried blind spots. Women were sidelined. Queer leaders were often muted. Gender-expansive people were rarely centered, even when their labor was indispensable.

    Pauli Murray — lawyer, theologian, poet, and visionary legal strategist — saw these tensions clearly. A collaborator with Rustin and a critic of sexism at the March on Washington, Murray challenged movements to live up to their own moral claims.

    This conversation examines how sexism shaped the Civil Rights era and how trans and non-binary communities have been marginalized within LGBTQ+ advocacy. It asks not only what Pauli might critique — but what Pauli might call us toward.

    What does it mean to be ready — ready to widen leadership, tell fuller histories, and move from symbolic inclusion to structural transformation?

  • Joint Q&A across fireside chat and panels

    Moderators field questions that connect Rising and Ready — innovation and accountability in conversation.

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