If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!
BAYARD RUSTINPeople will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
More Bayard Rustin Quotes
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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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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.
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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.
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Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’
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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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When I say I love Eastland, it sounds preposterous a man who brutalizes people. But you love him or you wouldn’t be here. You’re going to Mississippi to create social change and you love Eastland in your desire to create conditions which will redeem his children.
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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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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.
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Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
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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.
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Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel’s existence.
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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.
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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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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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Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it.
BAYARD RUSTIN