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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.

Bayard Rustin

Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Conflict Law States
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Destroyed Enraged Injustice
There is a strong moralistic strain in the civil rights movement that would remind us that power corrupts, forgetting that the absence of power also corrupts.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Movement Rights Strong
There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Accept Injustice Protest Seek Violent Way
We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Hard Knows One Way
Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Character Gay Rights
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Issues Military War
Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Black Gay People
The proof that one truly believes is in action.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Action Believe Proof
If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood. If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Brother Goal Men
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Names Organization
Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking
My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Grandparent Spring
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Rights Thinking
I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community,
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Taken Thinking
I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Attack Newspaper Play Publish Straight

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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