“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.”

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.

Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it.

The real radical is that person who has a vision of equality and is willing to do those things that will bring reality closer to that vision. . .

The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.

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.

Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.

My activism did not spring from being black…The racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.

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

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.

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.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I have accepted fear as a part of life – specifically the fear of change… I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back.

I am there for the best interests of the fighters, I want them to win. If they don’t accept that, bye bye.

I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn’t just accept it; I looked forward to it as a mission.

What is an anarchist? One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice.

I regard them as earth’s heroes. But I do not wish to believe them without cause, nor to accept those propositions whose antitheses (as you must have understood if you are not both blind and deaf) are so compellingly true.

Religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.

I think part of picking where you live in New York is accepting who you are. Really looking at yourself and going, ‘Yeah, I’m not cool enough for the West Village.’

Religion operates on the principle ‘I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.’ But the operating principle of the gospel is ‘I am accepted by God through what Christ has done-therefore I obey.’