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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
Else
Fight
Blacks
Long
Learned
Obligation
Think
Realizing
Gay
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Moral
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Fighting
Unless
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Realize
Helping
Nobody
Gays

More quotes by Bayard Rustin

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The Journey of Reconciliation was organized not only to devise techniques for eliminating Jim Crow in travel, but also as a training ground for similar peaceful projects against discrimination in such major areas as employment and in the armed services.
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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.
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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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We are all one - and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way.
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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.
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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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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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Since Israel is a democratic state surrounded by essentially undemocratic states which have sworn her destruction, those interested in democracy everywhere must support Israel's existence.
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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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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.
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We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.
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The only weapon we have is our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn
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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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The proof that one truly believes is in action.
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I believe there are certain types of movements which cannot be married.
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Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
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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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The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
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When you're wrong, you're wrong. But when you're right, you're wrong anyhow.
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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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