On August 15, 2015, the world lost an outspoken political activist. A pillar for racial equality and long-time Board Chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond overcame many obstacles while fighting for the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and during his time as a Georgia state legislator. In fact, it was only because Blacks had recently been given the right to vote and subsequently run for office that Bond was legally permitted to represent his district in 1965. Bond and other like-minded activists were able to galvanize monumental change for all races as a result of tremendous and persistent leadership.

His death serves a reminder of all that the African American community has overcome in as few as 50 years. Increased representation in politics, corporate America, television, post-secondary education, and STEM fields are all the result of equality efforts from groups like the NAACP. Movements like “Melanin Monday” and “My Black Is Beautiful” seek to empower and uplift the Black community in ways that could have never been possible in the 1960s by using social media.

However, many of the things for which Bond fought have yet to come to fruition even today, as many as 50 years later. Despite the fact that significant progress has been made since the 1960s, the fact remains that we are still marching for some of the same things in 2015 that we were fighting for in 1965. The cry for equality in the eyes of the law and society is as poignant in the response to Michael Brown’s death as it was in response to the Birmingham Church Bombing in 1963.

Watching dissatisfaction with police relations continue to grow is like looking in the rear-view mirror at the circumstances of the Civil Rights Movement. The treatment of protesters in response to fatal police interactions of unarmed Black men in recent years is eerily reminiscent of rampant police brutality of ordinary citizens in the old Jim Crow south.

Using tear gas and a full National Guard opposition force to interact with protesters was a troubling reminder of the overwhelming violence Blacks endured at the hands of law enforcement during the 1950s and 1960s.

Sure the Civil Rights Act of 1964 guarantees that de jure segregation is no longer an issue, but economic stratification, mass incarceration of minorities and a statistically inferior education in lower income communities ensure that separate is still considered equal.

The 15^th Amendment coupled with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 guarantees that people cannot be denied the right to vote on the basis of race, but new measures enacted by state legislatures in places like Texas impose strict voter I.D. laws that systematically target minorities and deter them from the polls. It should be troubling to us as a nation that the years of dedication by equality activists like Bond are being eradicated and circumvented by legislation rooted in the past.

The fight is not over. Our nation faces a series of irreconcilable realities: on one hand, the nation chants that we have overcome because we have had our first Black president while the #BlackLivesMatter movement needs constant justification on the other.

The first-hand witnesses of the horrors of the discrimination of the past have equipped us with the wisdom and tenacity to carry the torch in the present fight. Bond’s death is a sobering reminder that the culmination of our efforts for social justice may not be fully manifested during our lifetime, but we must honor the legacy of the icons before us.