The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice is a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization located in

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It hosts programming and events geared towards public health, gender and sexual advocacy, and civil rights for marginalized people, particularly

LGBTQIA+ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an ...

youth. The center was named in honor of

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, ...

, a black and gay activist of the American

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

History

The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice (BRCSJ) was founded in 2018 by Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber, a former middle-school teacher who founded the first middle school gay-straight alliance in New Jersey. In 2017, he was named Social Justice Activist of the Year by the

National Education Association The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stude ...

. From 2018-2020, the BRCSJ operated from its first headquarters on Wiggins Street in Princeton, NJ. On June 30, 2018, the BRCSJ held the second largest "Families Belong Together" rally in NJ. In collaboration with Central Jersey

GLSEN GLSEN (pronounced ''glisten''; formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) is an American education organization working to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expres ...

, the BRCSJ held New Jersey's largest LGBTQ youth forum, with keynote speaker

Gavin Grimm ''G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board'' is a case dealing with transgender rights. The case involves a transgender boy attending a Virginia high school, who sued the local school board after he was forced to use girls' restrooms based on his a ...

. The BRCSJ supported New Jersey State Legislature Bill A1335 which “would require Boards of Education to include instruction, and adopt instructional materials, that accurately portray political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.” In 2019, the organization co-sponsored Martin Luther King Jr. Day events at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. Also in 2019, the BRCSJ organized Princeton’s first

Pride parade A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...

as well as Princeton’s first

drag show A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women. Typically, a drag show involves performers singing or lip-synching to songs while performing a pre-planned pantomime or dancing. There might also be so ...

. In 2020, the BCRSJ transitioned to a completely virtual platform due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. They hosted a Virtual Pride event, which featured such guests as Billy Porter,

Sam Sparro Sam, SAM or variants may refer to: Places * Sam, Benin * Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso * Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso * Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso * Sam, Iran * Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place People and fictional c ...

, and

Luis Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

and

Bob Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places * Mount Bob, New York, United States *Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals *Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters *Bob (surname ...

from ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...

''. They began a nightly virtual Social Justice Power Hour, with guests including Robert Jones Jr.,

Patton Oswalt Patton Peter Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is known as Spence Olchin in the sitcom ''The King of Queens'' (1998–2007) and for narrating the sitcom '' The Goldbergs'' (2013–present) as ...

Valerie Jarrett Valerie June Jarrett ( Bowman; born November 14, 1956) is an American businesswoman and former government official. She currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the Obama Foundation. She previously served as the Senior Advisor to the Pre ...

Maggie Smith Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. With an extensive career on screen and stage beginning in the mid-1950s, Smith has appeared in more than sixty films and seventy plays. She is one of the few performer ...

Adam Gopnik Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books ...

Wayne Brady Wayne Alphonso Brady (born June 2, 1972) is an American television personality, comedian, actor, and singer. He is a regular on the American version of the improvisational comedy television series ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' He was the host of ...

Garry Trudeau Garretson Beekman Trudeau (born July 21, 1948) is an American cartoonist, best known for creating the '' Doonesbury'' comic strip. Trudeau is also the creator and executive producer of the Amazon Studios political comedy series ''Alpha House'' ...

Raquel Willis Raquel Willis (born 1990/1991) is an African American writer, editor, and transgender rights activist. She is a former national organizer for the Transgender Law Center, the former executive editor of ''Out'' magazine, and currently serves as the ...

, Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta,

Ibram X. Kendi Ibram Xolani Kendi (born Ibram Henry Rogers, August 13, 1982) is an American author, professor, Anti-racism, anti-racist activist, and historian of race and discriminatory policy in America. In July 2020, he assumed the position of director of th ...

, PA Lt. Gov. and Senator-elect John Fetterman,

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often ...

( X), Billy Eichner, Keisha Blain,

Kiese Laymon Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974, Jackson, Mississippi) is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, ''Long D ...

, and Susanna Hoffs. The Social Justice Power Hour ran continuously every weeknight for over 600 shows from 2020-2022 and continued in a multiplatform format. The BRCSJ collaborated with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Princeton’s Racial Justice Task Force to declare racism a public health crisis. In 2020, the BRCSJ received a commendation in a Joint legislative Resolution from the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly. In 2022, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman presented the BRCSJ with a Congressional Proclamation, "recognizing and honoring Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice’s (BRCSJ) positive impact and achievements as an activist center, educational bridge and safe space for LGBTQIA youth, families and allies". In March 2022, it re-opened physically at the organization’s second headquarters in Princeton, at 12 Stockton Street. In June 2022, the BRCSJ organized Princeton’s Pride parade, which drew over 3500 people, and was headlined by

Alan Muraoka Alan Muraoka (born August 10, 1962) is a Japanese American actor and director who plays Alan, the current owner of Hooper's Store, on the television show ''Sesame Street'' since 1998. He currently serves on the board of directors at thBayard Rusti ...

of ''

'' as Grand Marshall.

Objectives and activities

The BRCSJ continues to offer programming and service as a local

safe space The term safe space refers to places "intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations". The term originated in LGBT culture, but has since expanded to include any place where a margi ...

for multigenerational,

intersectional Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adv ...

communities. Some of their services include free, in-house therapy for

LGBTQIA ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an ...

youth; birth justice and reproductive rights offered by a BRCSJ Doula-in-Residence; the Transgender Justice Collective; Queer History Archive; and the Queer Youth Brigade. The BRCSJ is home to a social justice lending library which features over 1,000 books by authors who are LGBTQIA+ or hold other marginalized identities.

People

Bayard Rustin's partner Walter Naegle is Board Member Emeritus. Members of the BRCSJ Board of Directors have included

Emilio Delgado Emilio Ernest Delgado (May 8, 1940 – March 10, 2022) was an American actor best known for his role as Luis, the Fix-it Shop owner, on the children's television series ''Sesame Street''. Delgado joined the cast of ''Sesame Street'' in 1971 and r ...

who played Luis on ''

'';

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

and

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals ...

Media Award winner

(Alan on ''Sesame Street''); Dr.

Peniel E. Joseph Peniel E. Joseph is an American scholar, teacher, and public voice on race issues especially the history of the Black power movement. He holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in at ...

; Glen Pannell (Mike Hot-Pence); Rasheed Newson, author of “My Government Means To Kill Me”; and Bel-Air EP, poet and podcaster Micelle Elizabeth Brown; Coalition for Peace Action founder Rev. Robert Moore; Philadelphia trans activist Erin Worrell;

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

winning journalist Tom Haydon; queer educator Carol Watchler; labor rights organizer David Sailer; Center for Medicare Advocacy lawyer Wey-Wey Kwok; Stark & Stark shareholder Thomas Onder; and Dean Dafis, first openly gay mayor of

Maplewood, New Jersey Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populatio ...

. Chief Activist Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber was named as a top straight ally in New Jersey by Insider NJ before coming out as bisexual.

References

External links

* {{coord, 40.348017, -74.664456, display=title 2018 establishments in New Jersey LGBT organizations in the United States Social justice organizations Non-profit organizations based in Princeton, New Jersey Organizations established in 2018