WEST CHESTER: Bayard Rustin pardoned

The civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, namesake of one of West Chester's high schools, was in the news this week when he received a posthumous pardon from California governor Gavin Newsom. 
In 1953 Rustin, an African-American who was born in West Chester, was convicted in California for having sex with men, which was illegal in the state until the 1970s. He served 50 days in jail and had to register as a sex offender. He went on to work closely with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the civil rights movement and helped to organize the historic "March on Washington."
Rustin died in 1987 at age 75. He received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2013. 
Naming the school after Rustin back in 2003 was not without controversy; three of the nine school board members voted against adopting the name. Objections were that he would not be a good role model for students because as a Quaker and a pacifist he refused to participate in World War II (he served time in prison instead), he was gay, and he briefly belonged to the Young Communist League.
The high school's website has a video about his life.