"When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him."
Rustin was forced to resign from the movement in fear that his homosexuality would place the movement in jeopardy.
He was later able to re-join the movement and organized the March on Washington to end government-sanctioned segregation in 1963, where Martin Luther King's "I have a dream..." speech was given.
Bayard Rustin was erased from history.
In 1924, Henry Gerber, a postal worker in Chicago, started the Society for Human Rights, America's first known gay rights organization. "The Society for Human Rights is formed to promote and protect the interests of people who are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence, and to combat the public prejudices against them."
After having created and distributed a newsletter called "Friends and Freedom", Gerber was arrested and held for 3 days without a warrant or being charged with any infractions. Upon release he lost his job for "conduct unbecoming a postal worker".
"The experience generally convinced me that we were up against a solid wall of ignorance, hypocricy, meanness, and corruption. The wall had won."
Henry Gerber was erased from history.
Turing was enlisted by the British government to help the Allies crack the Enigma code in WWII. The Enigma code was a cipher that allowed Germany to send secure communications to its U-boats. Turing managed to break the code which led to the ultimate defeat of the Germans.
After the war, Turing was persecuted for being a homosexual. He was forced to take steroids which caused him to grow breasts. He died having eaten a poison apple. It is not clear if he committed suicide (would you blame him?) or was murdered.
Turing is not completely erased from history, as his name is well-known to those who study computer science. However, that he was a homosexual and was persecuted for it is rarely mentioned.
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