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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

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 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
To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Afraid Behave Truth
The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Country Enemy Segregation
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
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
Martin Luther King, with whom I worked very closely, became very distressed when a number of the ministers working for him wanted him to dismiss me from his staff because of my homosexuality.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Homosexuality Kings Numbers
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.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Fighting Gay Thinking
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
Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Gay Law People
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
Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Political Three
I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Believe Married Movement
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
Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God.
BAYARD RUSTIN

Conflict Law States

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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