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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.

Bayard Rustin

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More Bayard Rustin Quotes

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  I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.

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• 

  I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.

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• 

  Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago: Unless you are out here fighting for yourself then nobody else will help you. I think the gay community has a moral obligation to continue the fight.

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  If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!

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  The proof that one truly believes is in action.

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• 

  The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services.

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• 

  The new ‘niggers’ are gays. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

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• 

  if I was defended they simply said I had been defended. But I don’t think they have taken any effort at maligning me or maligning gays or making any effort to give to people anything that wasn’t news.

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• 

  If people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom.

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• 

  I don’t want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

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• 

  I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.

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  People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.

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• 

  You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

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• 

  Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality.

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• 

  God does not require us to achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.

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• 

  I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.

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