‘Rustin’ Review: Colman Domingo’s Charismatic Turn Will Define Not Only His Career, but Bayard Rustin’s as Well
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic It’s not easy to upstage Martin Luther King Jr., but that’s exactly what leading man Colman Domingo does in “Rustin,” a movie named for the civil rights pioneer who gave King the platform to speak his most famous four words: “I have a dream.” That day, Aug.
28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the man standing just over King’s right shoulder — quite literally, his right-hand man — was one Bayard Rustin.
It was he who conceived and organized what King himself called “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation,” the March on Washington.
While widely recognized for his contributions to the civil rights movement (and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama), Rustin is hardly the household name one might assume from his achievements — and worse still, he was nearly elbowed out of history altogether on account of his homosexuality.
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