[This article was updated on Feb. 5, 2020 to reflect Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to pardon Rustin and create a clemency initiative for others with similar convictions.]

Two California legislative caucuses are asking Governor Gavin Newsom to posthumously pardon Bayard Rustin, an openly gay African American Civil Rights leader who died in 1987, according to press reports in the Bay Area Reporter.

The letter to Newsom was sent by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assembly Member Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), the respective chairs of the LGBT Caucus and African American Caucus.

Rustin was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He worked with A. Phillip Randolph on the 1941 March on Washington Movement to end racial discrimination in employment, and was then asked by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Rustin usually worked behind the scenes in the Civil Rights Movement due to criticism of his homosexuality, but his sexuality was known to and supported by Dr. King. In the 1980s, Rustin expanded his racial civil rights work to publicly advocate for gay causes.

He was arrested in Pasadena in 1953 for “vagrancy,” a charge often levied against gay men for engaging in consensual same-sex activity in places where similar actions by opposite-sex couples were ignored. He spent 50 days in a Los Angeles jail and was forced to register as a sex offender. Racist Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) even read Rustin’s entire arrest record into the Congressional Record in an effort to discredit the Civil Rights Movement.

Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey issued a statement in support of the pardon, saying that Rustin was a victim of a “homophobic criminal justice system” and his ability to advocate for the causes he supported were curtailed by an unjust arrest “for activities between consenting adults that should never have been criminalized in the first place.”

Gov. Newsom, who served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and then as Mayor before being elected to be Lieutenant Governor and then Governor of California, issued a statement that suggests he’s receptive to the request:

“History is clear. In California and across the country, sodomy laws were used as legal tools of oppression. They were used to stigmatize and punish LGBTQ individuals and communities and warn others what harm could await them for living authentically. I thank those who are advocating for Mr. Bayard Rustin’s pardon. I will be closely considering their request and the corresponding case.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom in the Bay Area Reporter, Jan. 22, 2020

In 2014, Rustin became one of the inaugural honorees of the Rainbow Honor Walk in San Francisco’s Castro District, which recognizes LGBT pioneers and leaders throughout the world. His plaque is on 19th Street near Spike’s Coffees and Teas.

The posthumous pardon is supported by Rustin’s surviving partner, Walter Naegle, who released a statement saying, “Although Bayard passed away in 1987, such a pardon would be a symbolic gesture recognizing a violation of the concept of equal justice under the law.”

Then-President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

Update:

On February 5, Governor Newsom granted a posthumous pardon for Rustin. At the same time, he also announced a broader clemency initiative that would make it easier for all LGBTQ people with similar convictions to seek their own pardons.