Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustinwas an American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania, where his family was involved in civil rights work. In 1936, he moved to Harlem, New York City, where he earned a living as a nightclub and stage singer. He continued activism for civil rights...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth17 March 1912
CityWest Chester, PA
CountryUnited States of America
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.
When you're wrong, you're wrong. But when you're right, you're wrong anyhow.
The organizers and perpetuators of segregation are as much the enemy of America as any foreign invader.
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.
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.
The proof that one truly believes is in action.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We are all one - and if we don't know it, we will learn it the hard way.
Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.
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.
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. . .