Bayard Rustin (/ˈbaɪərd/; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights.
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.
I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.
Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays. I don't want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.
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.
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. . .
Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.
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.
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
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.
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.
People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
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.
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.
The proof that one truly believes is in action.
We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.