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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

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

Freedom Movement People
Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Black Gay People
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
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Human Manifest Situation Social
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. . .
BAYARD RUSTIN

Radical Real Vision
Bigotrys birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Birth Mind Place Plot
When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But when you’re right, you’re wrong anyhow.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Anyhow Racism Right Wrong
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
I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Married Movement
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Children Inspirational Love Men
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 would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Attack Newspaper Play Publish Straight
The proof that one truly believes is in action.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Action Believe Proof
The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Enemy Segregation
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Democracy Desire Mean

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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