Early in 1956, Bayard Rustin traveled
from New York City to Montgomery, Alabama, to assist with
the newly launched boycott of the city's segregated bus
system. Upon his arrival, he discovered guns inside Martin
Luther King, Jr.'s house and armed guards posted outside
King's doors. Rustin persuaded boycott leaders to adopt
complete nonviolence, teaching King about Mohandas Gandhi's
vision and strategy of civil disobedience. Later called
the "American Gandhi," Rustin is credited with helping
to mold the younger King into an international symbol
of peace and nonviolence, and with organizing the triumphant
1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Yet this
"Socrates of the civil rights movement" was silenced,
threatened, beaten, arrested, imprisoned and fired from
important leadership positions and sometimes because of his
uncompromising political beliefs, but more often because
he was a gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. BROTHER
OUTSIDER will present a comprehensive documentary
portrait of Bayard Rustin, focusing on his political activism
for peace, racial equality, economic justice and international
human rights.