Topic: Young Communist League

1 chapters across the catalog

22: The Dream Maker
31:39 - 36:04

22: The Dream Maker

Bayard Rustin's Communist Ties and Socialist Leadership

The discussion shifts to Bayard Rustin's involvement with the Young Communist League and his eventual leadership of the Socialist Party in the United States. While his sexuality was a point of public scandal, the hosts argue his communist ties were the primary reason he was viewed as a liability by other civil rights leaders. J. Edgar Hoover used these affiliations to justify intense surveillance of the movement.