The new civil rights fight is the fight of our generation

I remember walking into a conference room at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in 1998 as a new hire, feeling, maybe for the first time in my life, that I had truly made it. Two years earlier, I had never even heard of the firm, then one of the five largest consulting companies in the world, and had no idea what a consultant was. I looked around the room and realized I was the only Black male hired in the change management practice in the New York office. I did not seek to be first, but there I was. I felt proud of myself, proud of my mother, an extraordinary businesswoman who had been denied an education herself but valued it more than anything else, and proud that her sacrifices had carried me to a place I could not have imagined when I arrived in this country as a migrant.

I earned my seat in that room and deserved the pride I felt in that moment but what I didn’t understand at the time was that my admission to that room was paid for by people Ilike Medgar Evers, Claudette Colvin, and John Lewis, and by the many others who endured beatings, imprisonment, threats, and even death as they fought to expand democracy in a country that frequently denied their humanity and mine.

I benefited from the struggles of generations of Black Americans who fought to hold this nation to its promises.

It also took me too long to realize that my success comes with responsibilities, and that it forms part of a long legacy stretching from the shores of Haiti to the streets of Harlem. We live in an era where the progress of the past century is being directly challenged. Our generation’s crucial task is to uphold these achievements and, as Martin Luther King Jr. stated, to act as an “instrument to save the soul of America.”

The Rights We Inherited Are Not Guaranteed

The fight for Black freedom began centuries earlier, when enslaved Africans resisted the systems built to deny their humanity. Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines fought it in Haiti. Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner fought it in the United States. Everywhere, Black people understood the same truth: freedom is never simply granted. It is won through struggle and defended across generations.

By the 1960s, Black Americans across the South still risked their livelihoods, their safety, and often their lives simply trying to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 came only after decades of organizing, protest, imprisonment, and assassination, after Medgar Evers was murdered in his driveway, after four Black girls were killed in a Birmingham church bombing, after marchers were beaten crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

This struggle affected not only Black America but also transformed the whole nation. It allowed many immigrants, including Haitians like my family, to gain rights and opportunities. Universities became more diverse, new anti-discrimination laws broadened economic prospects, and Black political representation increased. Many of us built our lives during this period of change, often unaware of the sacrifices that made our success possible.

What was won is now being contested again.

In 2013, the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for states to impose new voting restrictions. Republican legislatures aggressively gerrymandered districts to dilute Black political power. In 2023, affirmative action in college admissions was struck down, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs were dismantled across government and corporate America. Black women have borne much of the fallout. More than 300,000 Black women left the labor force by early 2025, while unemployment for Black women rose well above the national average for women overall. What we forget, at our own peril, is that white supremacy has always adapted to the times. It once openly defended slavery and segregation. Today, it more comfortably speaks through attacks on voting rights, immigration, diversity programs, and demographic change.

The language of white supremacy has evolved, but the hierarchy has not changed, and the project remains the same.

This article is a reminder that immigrant communities’ political future is intertwined with that of Black Americans, whose families have lived here for generations. The political right’s effort to exclude specific groups from the American dream does not differentiate between Black Americans and Black immigrants. Although dividing ourselves might temporarily reduce old resentments and stereotypes, it ultimately undermines us all.

I understand the frustration with the two political parties. Many Black voters and immigrants are legitimately frustrated with the Democratic Party — and for good reason. The Clinton-era crime bill devastated Black communities. Under Obama, deportations accelerated while economic progress for Black Americans remained limited. The Biden administration was unwilling to push through stronger federal voting rights protections even as democratic erosion intensified.

However, there’s a clear difference between a party that has frequently let Black Americans down and one that is actively eroding rights and protections earned through decades of effort. What we see today is more than a typical partisan struggle; it’s a sustained effort to undermine voting rights, diminish Black political influence, restrict opportunities, and reshape who truly belongs in America.

To remain on the sidelines in this moment is not neutrality. It is acquiescence.

To my Haitian American friends who are aligned with this administration and party, I ask you to look honestly at what is happening around you. The Black politicians who supported this administration were embraced when they were useful and cast aside when they were not. The “Make America Great” movement is driven by fear of demographic change and resentment of Black political power. It will accept your loyalty, your vote, and your defense of it, but that does not mean it will ever see you as an equal partner.

The Debt of Our Generation

What Black Americans and Haitian Americans share right now is not only a common threat but a common condition. We arrived here on the same boats but were dropped off at different ports. Through the years, we have each experienced different struggles and carried unique wounds, but we have always been part of the same story.

I still think about that conference room. How easy it is to enjoy an inheritance without acknowledging what it cost or recognizing that what was won can also be lost.

The work ahead of us is difficult but not complicated. It means organizing, voting, and building real coalitions with Black Americans who have been fighting versions of this same battle longer than most of our families have lived in this country. It also means having honest, uncomfortable conversations within our own communities that we have long avoided.

The ancestors who came before us did not endure pain and sacrifice so that we could remain passive now. We owe them more than just gratitude; we have a responsibility to work together to safeguard their achievements and pass them on to future generations.