Bayard Rustin: The only way to reduce ugliness in the world is to reduce it in one's self.

<< 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.

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 racial injustice that was present in this country during my youth was a challenge to my belief in the oneness of the human family.

Bigotry's birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings. The only way to reduce ugliness in the world is to reduce it in one's self.

We need in every bay and community a group of angelic troublemakers. >> ~ Bayard Rustin