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The proof that one truly believes is in action.

Bayard Rustin

My activism did not spring from my being gay, or, for that matter, from my being black. Rather, it is rooted fundamentally in my Quaker upbringing and the values that were instilled in me by my grandparents who reared me.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Grandparent Spring
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Rights Thinking
Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking
There is a strong moralistic strain in the civil rights movement that would remind us that power corrupts, forgetting that the absence of power also corrupts.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Movement Rights Strong
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Freedom Movement People
I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Married Movement
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Degree Fighting Turn
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Issues Military War
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
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Accept Injustice Protest Seek Violent Way
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

Gay Names Organization
When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But when you’re right, you’re wrong anyhow.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Anyhow Racism Right Wrong
If anyone thinks they’re going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they’re wrong!
BAYARD RUSTIN

Children Fighting School
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
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
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Anything Defend Effort Simply

The proof that one truly believes is in action.

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The proof that one truly believes is in action.

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