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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

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Bayard Rustin
Age: 74 †
Born: 1912
Born: January 1
Died: 1987
Died: January 1
Activist
Civil Rights Advocate
Lgbtiq+ Rights Activist
Politician
Trade Unionist
Westchester
Pennsylvania
Helping
Nobody
Gays
Else
Fight
Blacks
Long
Learned
Obligation
Think
Realizing
Gay
Thinking
Moral
Continue
Community
Beginning
Fighting
Unless
Help
Realize

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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.’
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People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.
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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.
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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.
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I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
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We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
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The proof that one truly believes is in action.
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Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
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If I do not fight bigotry wherever it is, bigotry is thereby strengthened. And to the degree that it is strengthened, it will, thereby, have the power to turn on me.
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We are all one - and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way.
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When you're wrong, you're wrong. But when you're right, you're wrong anyhow.
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Both morally and practically, segregation is to me a basic injustice. Since I believe it to be so, I must attempt to remove it. There are three ways in which one can deal with an injustice. (a) One can accept it without protest. (b) On can seek to avoid it. (c) One can resist the injustice non-violently. To accept it is to perpetuate it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.
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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.
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If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood. If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.
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