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.'

According to President Ronald Reagan, I was denounced by former friends, because I never gave up my conviction that minorities in America could and would succeed based on their individual merit.

I supported sending jets and weapons to Israel to fight the Arab States, I worked with the CIA to rig elections in the Dominican Republic, I gave "critical support" to the US military intervention in Vietnam, I opposed arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, and I supported the deployment of the apartheid South African army to fight the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

I convinced Martin Luther King Jr. to abandon the use of armed protection for himself and his family, and took credit for teaching him about the principles of nonviolence.

President Barack Obama posthumously awarded me the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

I'm Bayard Rustin , an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, gay rights... and neoconservativism.