Bayard Rustin Quotes

Quotes about:

• Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.

  Bayard Rustin

  Injustice, Destroyed

  193 Copy quote

• We are all one - and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way.

  Bayard Rustin

  Way, Knows, Hard

  182 Copy quote

• We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.

  Bayard Rustin

  Peace, Ubuntu, Community

  172 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Mean, Desire, Democracy

  186 Copy quote

• 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, People, Given

  Source: kalamu.com

  70 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Fighting, Gay, Winning

  Source: kalamu.com

  60 Copy quote

• 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 You, Society, Dignity

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  154 Copy quote

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

  Bayard Rustin

  Behave, Ifs

  102 Copy quote

• 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. . .

  Bayard Rustin

  Real, Vision, Radical

  Bayard Rustin (1971). “Down the line”, Quadrangle-New York Times Book Co.

  128 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Fighting, Degrees, Turns

  Bayard Rustin (2003). “Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

  100 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Brother, Men, Goal

  Bayard Rustin (2012). “I Must Resist: Bayard Rustin's Life in Letters”, p.366, City Lights Publishers

  131 Copy quote

• The proof that one truly believes is in action.

  Bayard Rustin

  Believe, Action, Proof

  67 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Peace, Ubuntu, Humanity

  Bayard Rustin (2003). “Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin”, p.409, Simon and Schuster

  86 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Men, Looks, Firsts

  94 Copy quote

• The only weapon we have is our bodies, and we need to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn

  Bayard Rustin

  Needs, Body, Weapons

  111 Copy quote

• 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

  107 Copy quote

• You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people. Therefore join the movement as individuals against anti-Semitism, join the movements for the rights of Hispanics, the rights of women, the rights of gays. In other words, I think that each movement has to stand on its own feet because it has a particular agenda, but it can ask other people.

  Bayard Rustin

  Gay, Thinking, Rights

  Source: kalamu.com

  61 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Suicide, Fighting, Prejudice

  88 Copy quote

• 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. The new ‘niggers’ are gays. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

  Bayard Rustin

  Gay, Law, People

  94 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Country, Spring, Oneness

  72 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Birth Place, Mind, Plot

  Bayard Rustin (1971). “Down the line”, Quadrangle-New York Times Book Co.

  84 Copy quote

• You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

  Bayard Rustin

  People, Movement

  Bayard Rustin (2003). “Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin”, p.397, Simon and Schuster

  11 Copy quote

• Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

  Bayard Rustin

  Gay, People, Black

  Source: kalamu.com

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Bayard Rustin

  Believe, Political, Three

  52 Copy quote

• I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.

  Bayard Rustin

  Believe, Creative, Trouble

  39 Copy quote

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