You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTINYou have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTINLooking 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.’
BAYARD RUSTINif 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 RUSTINBlack gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
BAYARD RUSTINWhen 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 RUSTINYou have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
BAYARD RUSTINIf 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 RUSTINEvery gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays.
BAYARD RUSTINEvery indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.
BAYARD RUSTINWe are all one – and if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.
BAYARD RUSTINMy 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 RUSTINLet us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
BAYARD RUSTINPeople will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
BAYARD RUSTINI 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 RUSTINIf 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 RUSTINBigotrys 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