Bayard Rustin Stamp Act

Bayard Rustin Stamp Act

This bill requires the U.S. Postal Service to issue a forever stamp depicting Bayard Rustin to honor his life and work.

[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5220 Introduced in House (IH)]

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118th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 5220

  To direct the Postmaster General to issue a forever stamp depicting 
                 Bayard Rustin, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            August 15, 2023

  Ms. Norton (for herself and Mr. Torres of New York) introduced the 
 following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and 
                             Accountability

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To direct the Postmaster General to issue a forever stamp depicting 
                 Bayard Rustin, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Bayard Rustin Stamp Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Bayard Rustin was born on March 17, 1912, and was 
        raised by his grandparents in West Chester, Pennsylvania. From 
        a young age, Rustin learned to prioritize the values of 
        nonviolence and peacekeeping from his grandparents' Quaker 
        faith, and would continue to build these values in his life as 
        a civil rights movement leader.
            (2) Rustin attended City College of New York, where he 
        joined a progressive club that aimed to remedy racial issues 
        during turbulent times. His time with the club was short lived, 
        but it inspired him to join the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 
        an organization that became a champion for labor rights, 
        equality, and world peace.
            (3) His time with the Fellowship of Reconciliation prompted 
        Rustin to become a leader in the 1947 ``Journey to 
        Reconciliation'', an event where White and Black people across 
        the South rode buses together to challenge segregation laws, a 
        precursor to the Freedom Rides.
            (4) Rustin was an advisor in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 
        inner circle as he advocated pacifism and nonviolence for 
        achieving equal treatment for African Americans.
            (5) Rustin used his brilliant strategic handling of the use 
        of aggressive, peaceful action in the civil rights movement and 
        throughout his life as an activist.
            (6) His most important role was as the chief organizer of 
        the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, the 
        largest demonstration ever organized at the time, in which a 
        quarter of a million people turned out to demand civil rights 
        for African Americans.
            (7) In the years after the civil rights movement, Rustin 
        used his background as a gay man to inspire others to advocate 
        for and to achieve LGBT rights.
            (8) Rustin remained a strategist and public speaker for 
        workers' rights movements, including co-founding the A. Philip 
        Randolph Institute for Black trade union members.
            (9) Rustin committed to promoting social good and 
        advocating for the disenfranchised until his death in 1987.

SEC. 3. BAYARD RUSTIN STAMP.

    (a) In General.--In order to honor the life and work of Bayard 
Rustin, a leader in the civil rights movement, the Postmaster General 
shall provide for the issuance of a forever stamp suitable for that 
purpose that depicts Bayard Rustin.
    (b) Definition of Definitive Stamp.--For the purposes of this Act, 
the term ``forever stamp'' means a definitive stamp that--
            (1) meets the postage required for first-class mail up to 
        one ounce in weight; and
            (2) retains full validity for that purpose even if the rate 
        of that postage is later increased.
    (c) Effective Date.--The stamp described in subsection (a) shall be 
issued as soon as practicable after the date of the enactment of this 
Act.
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