Byron Rushing served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1983 to 2018. In the legislature, Byron’s priorities were human and civil rights; and economic and housing development and health care for all. Byron was an original sponsor of the gay rights bill and the chief sponsor of the law to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public schools. He was one of the leaders in the constitutional convention to maintain same sex marriage in Massachusetts. From 1972 to 1985, he was President of the Museum of Afro-American History. During the 1960s he was active in the civil rights movement–working for CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) in Syracuse, NY, and as a community organizer for the Northern Student Movement in Boston. He directed a group of organizers, Roxbury Associates, who helped found the Lower Roxbury Community Corporation, one of the first CDCs in the nation.