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

Bayard Rustin

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 RUSTIN

Acknowledge Dignity Society
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Oneness Spring
We are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Hard Knows One Way
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
Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking
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
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
People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Given People
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
The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Enemy Segregation
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Community Peace Ubuntu
The only weapon we have is our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don’t turn
BAYARD RUSTIN

Body Needs Weapon
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
Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Black Gay People
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Character Gay Rights
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Barometer Change Nigger Social Vulnerable

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

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

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