DELTA PHI UPSILON FRATERNITY, INC.

The Scholarship Award Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc.® The Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award

Despite these achievements, Rustin often remained in the BAYARD RUSTIN: The Life, The Legacy background. He was silenced, threatened, arrested, beaten, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions, largely because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. During the early 1970s Rustin se ved on the board of trustees of The Life the University of Notre Dame and throughout the 1970s and 1980s, worked as a human rights and election monitor for Freedom House, Bayard Rustin was an American leader in social movements for civil testifying on behalf of New York State’s Gay Rights Bill. rights, socialism, pacifism and non-violence, and gay rights. Bayard Rustin died on August 24, 1987. He was survived by Walter Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania on March 17, 1912 and raised by Naegle, his partner of ten years. He was posthumously awarded his maternal grandparents, Rustin was exposed to NAACP leaders honorary membership into Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc. such as W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson who were frequent guests in the Rustin home. With these early influences in his youth Rustin campaigned against racially discriminatory Jim Crow laws. The Legacy In 1932, Rustin entered Wilberforce University, a historically black Despite the fact that he played such an important role in the civil college in Ohio operated by the AME Church. As a student at rights movement, Rustin “faded from the shortlist of well-known Wilberforce, Rustin was active in a number of campus organizations, civil rights lions,” in large part because of public discomfort with his including the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity. He left Wilberforce in 1936 sexual orientation. However, the 2003 documentary film Brother before taking his final exams, and later attended Cheyney State Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, a Sundance Festival Grand Jury Teachers College. Prize nominee, and the March 2012 centennial of Rustin’s birth have After completing an activist training program conducted by the contributed to some renewed recognition. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Rustin moved to Harlem • The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex located in the Chelsea in 1937 and began studying at City College of New York. There he neighborhood of is named for him. became involved in efforts to defend and free the Scottsboro Boys, nine young black men in Alabama who were accused of raping two • Bayard Rustin High School is located in his hometown of West white women. He joined the Young Communist League in 1936 and Chester, Pennsylvania. soon after coming to , he became a member of Fifteenth • Bayard Rustin Library at the Affirmations Gay/Lesbian Street Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Community Center in Ferndale, Michigan. In 1947, Rustin helped to organize the Journey of Reconciliation, • Bayard Rustin Social Justice Center in Conway, Arkansas. the first of the Freedom Rides to test the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that banned racial discrimination in • Biographical feature of Bayard Rustin in the movie Out of the interstate travel. Participants in the Journey of Reconciliation were Past. arrested several times. Arrested with Jewish activist Igal Roodenko, • In July 2007, with the permission of the Estate of Bayard Rustin, Rustin served twenty-two days on a chain gang in a group of San Francisco Bay Area African American LGBT for violating Jim Crow laws regarding segregated seating on public community leaders formed the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition transportation. (BRC), to promote greater participation in the electoral process, In 1951, he formed the Committee to Support South African advance civil and human rights issues, and promote the legacy Resistance, which later became the American Committee on Africa. of Mr. Rustin. He later became the executive secretary of the . • Bayard Rustin Center for LGBTQA Activism, Awareness and In 1956 he was asked to advise Martin Luther King Jr. on organizing Reconciliation at Guilford College, a Quaker school. Formerly the the public transportation boycott in Montgomery, Alabama known Queer and Allied Resource Center, the March 2011 rededication as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The following year, Rustin and King was with the permission of the Estate of Bayard Rustin and began organizing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference featured a keynote address by social justice activist Mandy (SCLC). Carter. • A Pennsylvania State Historical Marker is placed at Lincoln and A master strategist and tireless activist, he is best remembered as Montgomery Avenues in West Chester, commemorating his the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest accomplishments, on the grounds of Henderson High School nonviolent protests ever held in the U.S. He brought Gandhi’s protest where he attended. techniques to the American civil rights movement and played a deeply influential role in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to • The Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity Bayard Rustin Scholarship mold him into an international symbol of nonviolence. Award was created in his honor. “We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers” — Bayard Rustin Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc.® The Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award

GENERAL INFORMATION On the chapter and national level, the REQUIRED SUPPORTING monetary amount of the Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award will vary. Awards are not CREDENTIALS Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc. renewable. • Transcripts

In 1985, Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity became Eligibility All applicants must submit official sealed America’s first Greek-letter organization copies of their school transcripts. Must be established for gay men of color. Her An applicant for the Delta Phi Upsilon received by mail. roots date back to Florida State University, Fraternity Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award • Letters of Recommendation Tallahassee, Florida, where Trevor A. Charles must be either: All applicants must submit two (2) sealed of Miramar, Florida, conceived the idea 1. A college-bound male who is enrolled letters of recommendation. At least one for formation. He viewed the Fraternity as a graduating High School Senior at recommendation must be from either a as a vehicle for enriching the social and the time of application. The applicant’s teacher or a guidance counselor. Must be intellectual aspects of college life by unweighted grade point average must received by mail. providing mental stimulation through not be lower than 2.5 on a 4.0 scale for interaction with friends and associates. the cumulative period through the most • Essays recent grading period/semester. In the year of her founding, Delta Phi Upsilon All applicants are required to submit a 500- listed as her particular purpose or objective 2. A male who is enrolled as a full-time word typewritten essay. “to cultivate and encourage high scholastic student at an accredited two or four year and ethical standards among Black gay men.” college/university. The applicant’s grade • Photograph point average must not be lower than Through the years, however, as her numbers 2.75 on a 4.0 scale for the cumulative One passport-size color photograph should have grown, Delta Phi Upsilon’s function has period through the most recent grading be submitted to be used in official press become more complex. period/semester. release and other fraternal announcements. After her incorporation as a perpetual body, By submitting your photograph you agree Delta Phi Upsilon gradually branched out Deadline to allow it to be used in the press release and became the channel through which and other fraternal announcements. All selected college-minded gay men worked If you are applying to the NATIONAL photographs submitted become the to improve the social conditions in their FRATERNITY, all application materials must property of Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc. city, state, nation and the world. Today, that be received by May 31. You will be notified Submit with application via email. tradition has continued - locally, nationally of a decision by June 30. • Miscellaneous Information and internationally. Applicants may e-mail their completed A. High School applicants are required to Delta Phi Upsilon continues to encourage application form to [email protected] or submit a copy of their acceptance letter intellectual achievement, improve the public mail their form along with all supporting from a four-year college or university. stature of gay people, promote unity among credentials to: B. Award checks will be forwarded gay men and support a progressive interest Delta Phi Upsilon Fraternity, Inc. directly to the school upon written in the social and civic welfare of such men PO Box 573013 verification from the institution that through a nucleus of more than 300 men in Houston, TX 77257 the individual has enrolled. Actual ATTN: NHMAC numerous chapters. enrollment (not just acceptance) is Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award required. If you are applying TO A CHAPTER, all • Interviews Since its inception, Delta Phi Upsilon and application materials must be received its chapters has been dedicated to the by the deadline date set forth by the Interviews with the Honorary Members encouragement of young Black gay men awarding chapter. Please see chapter & Awards Committee will be required for to return to, or enroll in a degree-seeking website or other documentation for the all applicants who meet the eligibility program at a college, university, or school. deadline date and mailing instructions. requirements for a scholarship and are You will be notified of a decision by the chosen as finalists. A representative of the Born out of the efforts of the Delta Chapter in published date set by the chapter. Honorary Members & Awards Committee servicing the Greater Boston, Massachusetts community, the Bayard Rustin Scholarship Although you may email the application, will notify finalists regarding interviews. has grown into a national award presented some required documents must be received NOTE: Applications with incomplete to deserving college-bound students across by mail. See next section for information. or missing documentation will not be the regions of the Fraternity. considered. “We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers” — Bayard Rustin DELTA PHI UPSILON FRATERNITY, INC. The Bayard Rustin Scholarship Award