Five years in the making and the winner of more than 20 awards in the U.S. and abroad, Brother Outsider is a feature-length documentary portrait of Bayard Rustin. Described as “potent and persuasive” (Los Angeles Times), “beautifully crafted” (Boston Globe), “complex and nuanced” (Chicago Reader), and “poignant” (TIME), the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast nationally on PBS; it is currently airing on Logo/MTV. Filmmakers Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer shared the following reflections with State of the Re:Union: (more…)

Like most, I had never heard of Bayard Rustin until Al told me that we were doing an entire episode about him. I think in these infancy stages we were all still referring to him as Bay-erd. Anyway, like most people do now, I Googled him and stumbled upon his Wikipedia page (can you imagine that sentence 5 years ago?). It didn’t take long for my personal political proclivities to feel incited about the prospect of this hour-long special. I could hear it in my head, “This is State of the Re:Union and our show today is about a gay communist turned socialist.” Where do you go from there? (more…)

The year is 1967. Bayard Rustin, only a few years off of the triumph of organizing the 1963 March on Washington, is standing before a crowd of people. He’s laying out a plan to erase poverty from American cities and towns. It’s not just a pie-in-the-sky spouting of rhetoric, but an actual, tangible plan. He’s telling the U.S. government: do this, this and this—and maybe we can create a society in which everyone has jobs, health care, food on the table and a roof over their heads. (more…)

History lesson. Just the mention of those two words can induce sleep. Yet, working on State of the Re:Union’s Black History Month special has been an eye-opening experience for me in more ways than one. I’ve learned the fascinating story of Bayard Rustin, the man who’s the focus of the show and I’ve been re-inspired by the dramatic events and personalities of the civil rights movement…details that had long faded in my memory.  But the most important lesson I take away from this episode is an unsettling one.  Were it not for this project, Black History Month for me might have come and gone like it has in other years, acknowledged only with a brief mention on the news, followed by that well-worn excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. (more…)

Hi there, I’m Tina Antolini, the newest member of the SOTRU gang. I started as a producer for the show a couple of weeks ago, and am just getting around to a formal blog-oriented introduction. (more…)