Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.
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CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
Colman Domingo is pretty good as the eponymous, gay, civil rights organiser who not only had the problems of his colour, but of his fairly open sexuality to deal with as he tries to organise a massive march to the American Capitol. The goal of the march is to keep the pressure on the Kennedy administration's promises to end segregation - but there are plenty from within his own camp who would happily do without Bayard Rustin. I knew nothing about this man, and Domingo's energetic and charismatic performance goes some way to demonstrating just how hard he worked to fight internal squabbles - largely with Chris Rock's Roy Wilkins and Jeffrey Wright's Congressman Powell - as well as raise cash, galvanise the teams securing everything from tables to buses, and deal with the Washington authorities who were never exactly co-operative. It's a personal story which doesn't shy away from his relationships with Gus Halper's Tom and latterly with a man who has rather more to be discreet about. Occasionally violent but not graphic, it's clear this was a man who was passionate about many things, even when being homosexual was almost as toxic for him as his colour! The conclusion is the stuff of American history, so we always know what happens - it's the journey of a man determined through sheer force of personality to achieve his aims that's the focus here, and I think it works rather well.
