"RUSTIN" (2023)

This Netflix film illuminates Bayard Rustin, an often overlooked civil rights activist and main organizer of the famous 1963 March on Washington. It's very good on exposing the often vicious rifts in the movement, especially the opposition to the march by the NAACP and its head, Roy Wilkins (Chris Rock), and the perfidy of Rep. Adam Clayton Powell (Jeffrey Wright). Rustin (played forcefully by Coleman Domingo) gets support only from one leader, A. Philip Randolph (Glynn Turman), and later, reluctantly, from M.L. King (Ami Ameen). Rustin was an ex-Communist and was gay, big handicaps in that uptight era, but he soldiered on with incredible energy and leadership, ultimately marshaling an army of enthusiastic white and black youngsters to bring off the March. The acting is uniformly excellent and the pace never lets up. The gay angle is overplayed, but the drama's the driving force. Pretty good.