Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin a Film & a Discussion

Date and Time
June 13, 2012

Location

Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL)
Event Details

Brother Outsider:  The Life of Bayard Rustin

[83 minutes, 2002]

a film In commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of Baynard Rustin’s Birth

& discussion with   Filmmaker & Writer: BENNETT SINGER and Special Guest:  WALTER NAEGLE, Baynard Rustin’s Partner

Five years in the making and the winner of more than 25 international awards and honors, BROTHER OUTSIDER [83 minutes, 2002]  illuminates the life and work of Bayard Rustin, a visionary activist and strategist who has been called “the invisible man” and “the unknown hero” of the civil rights movement.

Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and national broadcasts on PBS and Logo/MTV, the film has been shown in hundreds of schools and by a variety of civil rights and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and GLSEN; excerpts from the film were shown at the NAACP’s 2011 national convention as part of a groundbreaking session on tackling homophobia in the African American community. The film has also been screened at the Kennedy Center, The United Nations, The Library of Congress, The Department of Justice, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in numerous countries around the globe, including India, South Africa, Poland, England, Italy, Iceland, South Korea, and Kazakhstan. In a review of the best historical documentaries of the last decade, Michael Fox of the San Francisco Film Society wrote: “For those who believe that individuals were expunged from history only in the former Soviet Union, Brother Outsider is a mesmerizing eye-opener… The film inspires audiences to carry on Rustin’s worldwide crusade against injustice, discrimination and poverty.” Rustin lived from 1912 to 1987; the centennial of his birth will be celebrated this year through a variety of events around the country.

Born and raised in Chicago, BENNETT SINGER is a New York-based filmmaker and writer. He produced and directed BROTHER OUTSIDER with Bay Area filmmaker Nancy Kates; Sam Pollard served as Executive Producer. Bennett’s previous documentary credits include the Emmy- and Peabody-Award-winning EYES ON THE PRIZE II; WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: THE RISE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN AMERICA; and THE QUESTION OF EQUALITY, all broadcast nationally on PBS. He is currently at work on ELECTORAL DYSFUNCTION, a feature-length documentary that uses irreverent humor to show why America’s voting system is broken—and how it can be fixed. Slated for national PBS broadcast and theatrical release in the fall of 2012, the film is being produced in association with WTTW and is hosted by Mo Rocca, a veteran of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and currently a correspondent for CBS News as well as a regular on NPR’s Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!
 
WALTER NAEGLE was Bayard Rustin's partner for the last decade of Rustin's life.  He currently serves as Executive Director of The Bayard Rustin Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to sustaining Rustin’s vision of a more peaceful and equitable world. An accomplished photographer, he accompanied Rustin on a number of international missions, investigating the conditions of refugees and prospects for democracy in countries experiencing social change, including El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, and South Africa.
 
For more information, visit: http://rustin.org/