Lasting Legacy: Dr. Bernard LaFayette’s Imprint On My Life

By: Nikhil Raghuveera, Head of Strategy & Innovation at the Celo Foundation

I work at the intersection of technology and financial inclusion with a vision to reimagine finance for historically marginalized communities excluded from traditional institutions. This work affords me the opportunity to collaborate with nonprofits here in the United States, as well as internationally in places such as Kenya, Brazil, and the Philippines to design solutions around community commerce and payments. Often, people ask me how I arrived at such a unique professional space and what inspires my dedication to social impact. A large influence comes from Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., a civil and human right icon, whose voice drives my personal and professional purpose of creating a more equitable world for future generations.

A Legacy of Education

I first met Dr. LaFayette during my sophomore year at Emory University in 2012. He had graciously agreed to speak at an upcoming conference that I was helping organize. His 20 minute talk on the philosophy of nonviolence left an indelible impression.

Dr. LaFayette was a difficult person to reach by email, but thankfully I had his phone number. That summer several months later, I gave him a call to ask if I could take an independent class on the philosophy of nonviolence. I was nervous, expecting him to say no because I imagined he was too busy to have time to meet with an undergraduate student. Dr. LaFayette was undoubtedly busy—I called him while he was facilitating a nonviolence workshop in South Africa. But to my delight, he said he’d love to have me as a student for an 1:1 independent study. This class began a journey that continues to this day, and exemplifies Dr. LaFayette’s commitment to educating future generations.

My junior and senior year curriculum became inextricably tied to coursework with Dr. LaFayette. Weekly 45 minute sessions turned into 1.5 to 2 hour discussions regarding his experiences in the civil rights movement, comparisons to the Arab Spring movement, political theory, Malcom X, the Black Panther Party, affirmative action, and a myriad of other topics. Dr. LaFayette is a unique teacher. He lets the other person talk first and structure the conversation. For someone who possesses such lived experiences and academic knowledge, it is a profound level of humility and genuine care. Nonviolence philosophy would call this agape, the highest form of love, and which Martin Luther King describes “the love of God operating in the human heart.”

My academic focus evolved to center on social justice issues, the intersection of violence and nonviolence, and political change. This culminated in my senior year when, following my thesis defense, Dr. LaFayette asked if I would like to serve on the Board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Taken aback. I couldn’t help but ask Dr. LaFayette why me, a recent college graduate with only academic experience. His response remains in my mind: “we all were in our 20s when we joined the Movement.” It was an opportunity to turn academic experience into tangible action—a relationship Dr. LaFayette personifies from his studies at Harvard to his leadership in the civil rights movement. In the meantime, I also started my professional career at an economic consulting firm in the litigation space in Boston, an industry different from anything related to social justice or civil rights. Perhaps it was intentional, but by bringing me into the SCLC Dr. LaFayette grounded my entire professional experience. He helped ensure that I remained committed to and engaged on the most pressing problems facing the United States.

My involvement with the SCLC meant that Dr. LaFayette remained a constant fixture in my life. We spoke regularly, often on economic inequality and Martin Luther King’s vision for the Poor People’s Campaign. I found Dr. LaFayette’s decades of work and continued efforts to be inspiring. He is someone who is unwilling to rest on prior victories. Over time, I realized that economic consulting was simply not enough—real work needed to be done in the world. I applied to business and policy school with the hopes of transitioning my career into the social impact space. My application was filled with experiences that involved work with Dr. LaFayette, as well as a recommendation letter from him. I eventually attended The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Harvard Kennedy School where I studied management theory, social justice movements, and technology for good with professors including Cornel West, Khalil Muhammad, and Erica Chenoweth. This academic experience both catapulted my work in the social impact space and further grounded Dr. LaFayette’s influence in my life. The result is now evident every day in my financial inclusion work.

Bending the Arc of the Moral Universe

During all of my experiences with Dr. LaFayette I never actually saw him outside a formal setting. It was always in a classroom or an event. In fall 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic just after completing graduate school, I finally visited him at his home in Tuskegee, Alabama. At the time, I worked at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a racial justice nonprofit in Montgomery. Every few weekends I would drive over—once or twice I even took lunch from Pannie-George’s Kitchen for us to all share as we sat outside. He, Mrs. LaFayette, I, and occasionally members of their family, would sit and reflect on the protests calling for racial justice, my work at EJI, the legacy of slavery in Tuskegee, and Dr. LaFayette’s ongoing work.

COVID-19 had put a pause on Dr. LaFayette’s travel so I expected him to be taking some time off. In fact, Dr. LaFayette was busier than I was at EJI. That fall, he conducted education sessions through Zoom, mentored a new crop of leaders, and engaged as much as possible. In all my time of knowing Dr. LaFayette I never saw him as tech savvy, but suddenly here he was reconfiguring his education efforts in a remote-first world. The Hamilton soundtrack by Lin Manuel Miranda was on my playlist at the time. I couldn’t help but think that the song “Non-Stop” was actually a portrayal of Dr. LaFayette.

Dr. King once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In my last conversation with Bryan Stevenson, the Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, he touched upon the fact that sometimes the moral universe needs a bit of a nudge. Dr. LaFayette is that nudge. His legacy is decades of tireless service advancing social justice both in the United States and abroad. For me personally, however, his legacy is also mentorship and education to carry forward his work. No one individual can replicate Dr. LaFayette’s level of impact on the world. But what I can do is look to him as a model as I seek to nudge the arc of the universe to one that is more

We believe in equal opportunity for all regardless of race, creed, sex, age, disability, or ethnic background.

Western Specialty Contractors

Enterprise Bank of South Carolin

Greater Birmingham Convention & Vistiors Bureau

Cooperative Energy

Associated Grocers Inc

Katz, Sapper, Miller LLP

Arcade Beauty

HED

Esambia County Healthcare System