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 RUSTINTo be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
More Bayard Rustin Quotes
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Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.
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Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
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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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The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
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I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
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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,
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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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The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.
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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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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.
BAYARD RUSTIN