How was Bayard Rustin involved in the advertisement at the center of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan?

Bayard Rustin was a key figure in the creation of the advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices," which appeared in The New York Times on March 29, 1960.12

Motivated by outrage over the treatment of Black college students in Alabama, Rustin collaborated with other civil rights activists, including A. Philip Randolph and Harry Emerson Fosdick, to publish the full-page ad. The advertisement aimed to condemn police violence in Montgomery and raise funds for the civil rights movement.12

Rustin was responsible for the strategic direction of the ad, specifically requesting that it be "hard-hitting" and include the names of prominent individuals as endorsers to increase its appeal. When the author of the ad, John Murray, expressed concern that these individuals had not provided explicit permission, Rustin insisted it would not be an issue because they were all established supporters of the movement. These actions inadvertently led to the landmark Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, as the ad contained factual errors that became the basis for a libel suit against the newspaper.21