The Man Behind the March

In the sweltering summer of 1963, Bayard Rustin worked from a cramped office at 170 West 130th Street in Harlem, a telephone receiver pressed to one ear while he scribbled logistics on a yellow legal pad. He had fewer than eight weeks to pull off something unprecedented — organizing the largest peaceful demonstration in American history. Rustin coordinated every detail: 21 chartered trains, hundreds of buses from across the country, 292 portable toilets, 40 first-aid stations, and 80,000 boxed lunches.…