Scholars have underplayed Bayard Rustin’s Quakerism. Labeled a “Gandhian,” Rustin is said to have prioritized techniques Gandhi tested in India over biblically-based teachings about nonviolence from a distant past. Gandhi did influence Rustin; however, I argue that Quakerism played a key role, as shown in Rustin’s “holy experiments'' at the Ashland Federal Penitentiary and at interracial institutes he organized. Rustin’s Quakerism is revealed as a radical habitus (N. Crossley). Rustin called on fellow Quakers to “expend our energies in developing a creative method of dealing non-violently with conflict,” to “make war impossible in ourselves and then make it impossible in society,” and to share with others what Quakers already have at hand: “a pattern for a ‘way of life that can do away with the occasion of war.’” Rustin’s experiments, grounded in this “way of life,” powerfully influenced non-violent direct actions he organized.