Director George C. Wolfe and producers Barack & Michelle Obama have finally announced casting for the lead in their upcoming Bayard Rustin biopic Rustin. Openly gay actor Coleman Domingo will step into the role of the civil rights legend.
Domingo joins stage legend Audra McDonald as well as actors Chris Rock and Glynn Turman in the film. Wolfe directs from a script he co-wrote with Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
Related: Civil rights hero Bayard Rustin gets official pardon for gay sex conviction
Bayard Rustin rose to fame as the right-hand man to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Though he helped organize several key protests including the 1963 March on Washington, King fired Rustin after learning that he was a gay man. Rustin spent the remainder of his life championing social justice causes, including supporting the labor movement and gay rights. He died in 1987.
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President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.
Coleman Domingo has experienced a career on the rise in the past year, taking high-profile roles in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and in Candyman earlier this year.
Rustin is set to go before the cameras later this year.
Kangol2
Very good choice. He’s an excellent actor. Not so sure about that script co-writing team but I’ll wait to see what they come up with.
jayceecook
An award winning playwright and an Academy Award winning screenwriter probably know what they’re doing.
Kangol2
George C. Wolfe is a great playwright, and Dustin Lance Black is an award-winning screenwriter, but I’m not so sure about their collaboration. I guess we’ll see.
jayceecook
I knew it was going to be Coleman Domingo before I read the article. Not many openly gay black actors that are known exist. Which is extremely unfortunate but a win for Domingo I guess.
Kangol2
There are quite a few. You might want to look up some.
jayceecook
@Kangol2
Billy Porter is known but personally I can’t see him in the role.
J. August Richards is somewhat known and possibly could be a candidate for the role but he’s been out for about a year.
François Clemmons doesn’t seem to act anymore, is too old for the role, and well has a complicated history as an “out” actor.
Tarell Alvin McCraney is not known and seems to be focusing on his writing career. Which so far is going good.
Darryl Stephens is also not known and honestly not a great actor in my opinion.
Todrick Hall is somewhat known and while talented in some ways would not be right for this role.
RuPaul is known and out but casting him would seem like a huge joke.
Jussie Smollett…do I even need to continue?
Titus Burgess is out, somewhat known and a pretty funny comedian. However would he be right for this role? Doubtful.
Jeremy Pope is not known, he is out as sexually fluid, but is too young for the role.
Alex Newell is somewhat known but just not right for the role.
Julian Walker is not known and doesn’t appear to be acting anymore.
Blake Young-Fountain is not known and doesn’t have much acting experience.
Those are all I can think of. I’m sure there’s more but again if there are they wouldn’t meet the criteria of my original comment. If you think I missed somebody who does please inform me.
Kangol2
A few more out gay/bi/non-binary Black actors in Hollywood (& some from the UK who’ve acted in US films/shows/series): James Bland (also a very talented writer), Brandon Victor Dixon, Keith Hamilton Cobb, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Charlie Barnett, Taofique Folarin, Nathan Lee Graham, Derrence Washington, Maurice Jamal (also a filmmaker), Kevin Daniels, Doug Spearman, Fisayo Akinyade, Kairon John, Cyril Nri, etc. as well as younger actors such as Justice Smith, Keiynan Lonsdale, Dyllon Burnside, Nicholas Ashe, Adam Faison, David Brandyn, Avery Wilson, Layton Williams, Navaris Darson, Anthony Bawn (who also writes and directs), Maurice Murrell, etc. And there are certainly more.
jayceecook
@Kangol2 I forgot about Charlie Barnett; I’ll give you that one. Could be a good choice for a younger Rustin.
But the rest…nah. Non-binary folks don’t count as they wouldn’t fit the very binary “actor” and “actress” categories. I didn’t consider anybody from outside the USA because again, they would most likely not be known, as is one of the requirements. A few of those guys you mentioned don’t identify as gay. One is dead. A few are theater actors with no television or film experience. There are some who don’t even act anymore after their one or two bit roles.
As I said in my original comment, “Not many openly gay black actors that are known exist.” Thanks for proving my point.
Kangol2
Who among the actors I’ve listed doesn’t identify as gay? And who’s dead? Also, Black British actors frequently play US roles now, as Idris Elba, Daniel Kaluuya, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and numerous others have demonstrated over the last 20 yaers, etc.
humble charlie
I thought it was going to be Wanda Sykes.
MISTERJETT
well, i guess YOU think that’s funny
Jon in Canada
Perfect casting.
Cato
Where is your evidence for King firing Rustin from the March on Washington? I have NEVER seen that said anywhere. Rustin did step down from his role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when they were planning a march on the 1960 Democratic Convention after Rep. Adam Clayton Powell threatened to spread a rumor that King and Rustin were having an affair if they didn’t cancel the march. Rustin understood it was a political necessity. Meanwhile other organizers of the convention march told Powell that if he spread the lie, they would put up posters of all the women Powell had slept with in his Harlem district.
They marched at the convention. And King later brought Rustin into the leadership to plan the March on Washington. King defended Rustin many times and recognized his strengths and liabilities as an out gay man with arrest records for promiscuity and draft dodging. They regularly worked together until King’s assassination.
CaptainChaos
I’m glad you said something Cato, because informed people know the Kings were LGBTQ allies. In fact, Coretta Scott King was a huge supporter, and spoke extensively of her and her husband’s support. A simple Google search brings up a trove of articles. The way this article was written, it could leave people thinking Martin Luther King was anti-gay, which is a lie!
Hank31
@CaptainChaos There is zero evidence that King was an “LGBTQ ally” because the fraudulent construct of “LGBTQ” did not exist during King’s lifetime.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe that King was in favor of rights based on gender identity disorder or transgender-ism, or that he would be favorably inclined toward a “queer” identity (whatever that means.
As for LGB people, there is limited and mixed evidence. As a minister, AFAIK, he never denounced homosexuality or cited Leviticus. He did stand by Rustin to an extent. OTOH, he did a newspaper advice column in the late 50s and responded to a letter from a gay boy with advice that directed the boy to therapy. Every MLK Day, anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera gleefully re-prints that column.
LeBlevsez
Hank31, you can truncate LGBTQ if you like, but you and your small MAGA cohort are LGBigots.
barryaksarben
Read Taylor Branch’s history fo the civil rights movement and you will find it. there are other places you will find it as it is pretty well known. J Edgar was so focussed on MLK that when Bayard was outed to King he was let go so as not to stall the movement. One of the truly greatest people in the civil rights movement was discarded horribly
wikidBSTN
Read the article again. It doesn’t say King fired Rustin from the March on Washington. It just says King fired him – doesn’t say when.
And I’m not sure of MLK supporting gay rights back in the 1960’s. Yes, Coretta Scott King did become an open supporter, but that was long after MLK’s murder. I would expect, however, that given who Dr. King was, he probably did support gay rights, but whether he publicly did so back then, I am not sure. But I am willing to be educated.
This much I am sure of – if MLK were alive today – he’d be supporting LGBT rights.
wikidBSTN
Hank31 = a fraudulent human being and a fraudulent “Christian”.
jayceecook
@Cato Yeah, Q needs to change that. King never fired Rustin from anything. King also knew Rustin was gay from the beginning. Though King did struggle with Rustin’s sexuality at times because of his faith.
That said, there was a period of time when King distanced himself from Rustin and did not work with him. This was around the same time Rustin stepped down from his role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rustin did understand it was probably good for the “bigger picture”. I remember that Rustin’s lover at the time said many years later in an interview or book that even though Rustin knew it would help the movement momentarily he still felt betrayed in a way. That King turned his back on him in that instance.
Thad
Hello from Bayard Rustin’s hometown, West Chester, PA. Rustin High School’s football team is excellent this season. This town was connected to Rustin throughout his life. We’re glad his story is being retold.
Goosecurls
If anyone is interested, there is a documentary on Rustin entitled “Brother Outside”.
wiggie
Rustin organized BOTH Marches on Washington in 1941 and 1963. He also helped King organize the SCLC. He was recommended to King by A. Phillip Randolph who led the 1941 march and told King that Bayard was gay. His homosexuality was pretty much an open secret and King didn’t fire him because he knew he was gay.
He was helping King organize another march and when they decided not to include it in the DNC, Adam Clayton Powell got upset and threatened to leak a fake affair between King and Rustin. When King called off the march because of that, Rustin left the SCLC.
DCFarmboy
It was more than an open secret. It was a documented fact as Rustin was arrested for being caught in a sexual act with a guy in the backseat of a parked car.
That being said what does get swept under the rug that in my view is that the early gay rights movement ignored or underappreciated Rustin late in his life. The white collar professionals in our movement had distain for Rustin’s strong support for the labor movement and the left wing activists didn’t like his anti-Communism.
crashstlmo
Coleman Domingo doesn’t look anything like Bayard Rustin. I don’t care how good of an actor he is.
Kangol2
Quite often actors who bear only a passing resemblance to the people they’re playing in biopics nevertheless do an OK to great job. Think about all the actors who’ve played QE2, or JFK, or Nixon, or Reagan, or MLK Jr., or Nelson Mandela, or Malcolm X, etc. A very good to great actor will get you to believe they are anybody they are trying to portray.