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We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.

Bayard Rustin

When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Acknowledge Dignity Society
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
Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Degrees War
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Rights Thinking
Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it at which point they can become human too.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Human Manifest Situation Social
Bigotrys birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Birth Mind Place Plot
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
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

Democracy Desire Mean
We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Hard Knows One Way
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Crow Journey Peaceful
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Humanity Peace Ubuntu
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Community Peace Ubuntu
Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Prejudice Suicide
I am a Quaker. And as everyone knows, Quakers, for 300 years, have, on conscientious ground, been against participating in war. I was sentenced to three years in federal prison because I could not religiously and conscientiously accept killing my fellow man.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Men War Years
The proof that one truly believes is in action.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Action Believe Proof
You have to all combine and fight a head-on battle – in the name of justice and equality – and even that’s going to be difficult. But if we let ourselves get separated so that we’re working for gays or school children or the aged, we’re in trouble.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Combine Difficult Fight Justice Name Ourselves Separate

We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.

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We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.

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Popular Authors

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