I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.
BAYARD RUSTINWhen you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But when you’re right, you’re wrong anyhow.
More Bayard Rustin Quotes
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To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
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Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago: Unless you are out here fighting for yourself then nobody else will help you. I think the gay community has a moral obligation to continue the fight.
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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.
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If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!
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If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will, thereby, have the power to turn on me.
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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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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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You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
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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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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.
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I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
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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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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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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.
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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