Top Bayard Rustin Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Bayard Rustin Biography

Bayard Rustin (/ˈbaɪərd/; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.

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Bayard Rustin Quotes

The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.

America, Enemy, Foreign, Organizers, Perpetuators, Segregation

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.

Acknowledge, Acknowledge You, Confers, Dignity, Society

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.

Military, War, Issues, Opponent, Apart

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.

Movement, Power, Rights, Strong

I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.

Believe, Movement, Married, Types, Certain

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. . .

Equality, Radical, Real, Things, Vision

Every 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.

Fighting, Prejudice, Return, Sooner, Suicide

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.

Cares, Gay, Names, Organization, People, Serious

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.

Conscientious, Man, Men, Sentenced, War, Years

Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed.

Act, Believe, Degrees, Inconsistent, Merely, War

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. 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.

Children, Conditions, Inspirational Love, Men, Mississippi

Looking 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. ’

Careers, Influenced, Life, Looking, Mean, People

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.

Gay, Grandparent, Instilled, Quaker, Spring

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.

Black, Country, Injustice, Oneness, Spring

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.

Achieve, Humanity, Peace, Tasks, Ubuntu

I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.

Believe, Creative, Dislocation, Social, Trouble

If we want to do away with the injustice to gays it will not be done because we get rid of the injustice to gays. It will be done because we are forwarding the effort for the elimination of injustice to all. And we will win the rights for gays, or blacks, or Hispanics, or women within the context of whether we are fighting for all.

Context, Fighting, Gay, Rid, Winning, Women

If anyone thinks they're going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they're wrong! 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.

Children, Equality, Fighting, Group, School, Working

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.

Community, Fighting, Gay, Nobody, Thinking

I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community, I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked, 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.

Effort, Gay, News, Taken, Thinking, Usually

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