Editor's note: Lora L. Fong is an assistant New Jersey attorney general who serves as the first chief diversity officer for the Department of Law and Public Safety. The following is an excerpt of her acceptance speech for the New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) 2020 Mel Narol Award on Oct. 9 at the NJSBA Diversity Summit. The award is given to individuals or organizations whose work has advanced diversity and inclusion for women and minority lawyers. The full speech, which includes Fong's personal memory of the award's namesake, can be found on the NJSBA blog under the CommunityNET tab at njsba.com.

These are such challenging times. We are all experiencing fatigue and trepidation. There is so much to be worried about—a pandemic, the economy, social injustice, factions and deep divides that exist in our society that threaten our way of life. We are facing the existential threat of climate change, rising white supremacy and hate groups. During all of this, we have lost heroes—Congressman John Lewis, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Far too many of us have lost loved ones: As of today, 213,995 people in this country have lost their lives to COVID-19, and the number continues to rise.

Still, we cannot lose hope. We have to realize we are in this for the long game. None of these threats was spawned overnight. The history of this great country is what it is. Its indigenous people were subjected to the threat of elimination starting with the earliest European settlements in the 15th century. The transatlantic slave trade began in 1619 and continued for hundreds of years. Something that resonates very personally with me—the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—banned immigration from China. It remained in effect for over 60 years, and was only repealed in 1943 because we needed to align politically with China as an ally. On the heels of its repeal, thousands of Japanese Americans were rounded up, deprived of their property and placed into internment camps during World War II. Sadly, we can fast forward to today, a time where we have witnessed the immoral and unthinkable systematic separation of thousands of children from their families at our southern border, and a time where, tragically, it would seem that our system of laws offers no justice for the taking of innocent lives, like Breonna Taylor's.