[2] Produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground, the film stars Colman Domingo in the title role, alongside Chris Rock, Glynn Turman, Aml Ameen, Gus Halper, CCH Pounder, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Johnny Ramey, Michael Potts, Jeffrey Wright, and Audra McDonald.
However, Baptist minister and long-time New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and NAACP leader Roy Wilkins are highly critical of Rustin on account of his romantic orientation—calling him a "queen."
The March in DC in August 1963 is intended to increase Congressional support for the passage of the civil rights bill Kennedy had proposed earlier in the year.
In February 2021, it was reported that George C. Wolfe would direct a film based on the life of Bayard Rustin from a script by Julian Breece and Dustin Lance Black.
[4] Later that month, Aml Ameen, CCH Pounder, Michael Potts, Bill Irwin, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Gus Halper, Johnny Ramey, Carra Patterson, and Adrienne Warren joined the cast.
[6][7] In December 2021, Jeffrey Wright, Grantham Coleman, Lilli Kay, Jordan-Amanda Hall, Jakeem Dante Powell, Ayana Workman, Jamilah Nadege Rosemond, Jules Latimer, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Frank Harts and Kevin Mambo joined the cast.
The website's consensus reads: "Colman Domingo is sensational in Rustin, a stirring biopic that shines an overdue light on a remarkable legacy of public service.
[20] John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal commended Domingo as a "force of nature in this film, delivering a complex, highly sympathetic portrayal" that "determines what the movie actually is, while preventing it from going awry.
Bilge Ebiri from Vulture observed that the script was laden with "ham-handed stage-setting with lines" that equated to "classroom-exercise level writing", leading to a film that was "filled with all the clichés of the genre."
He also elaborates that the film's "predictable plot points" and the "pro forma" nature of Rustin's "personal affairs" in conjunction with Wolfe's "methodical direction" led to "visual inertia".