Ep.15: Alphonso David | President of Human Rights Campaign | Strength Inherent in Our Differences
This week’s guest teaches us that it is our differences that make us stronger. Meet Alphonso B. David, an accomplished and nationally recognized LGBTQ2S+ civil rights lawyer and advocate, and the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Mr. David is the first civil rights lawyer and the first person of colour to serve as president of HRC in the organization’s nearly 40-year history. He has served at the forefront of the movement for LGBTQ2S+ equality for more than a decade and has worked at both the state and national levels.
In this episode, the two discuss his approach to leadership, an approach based on spirit instead of ego, as well as the skills and tools he brings to his role as HRC's first civil rights lawyer as President. He shares his upbringing in the U.S. and Liberia and the effect it had on his view of the value of democracy and the purpose of life. Mr. David also speaks about his experience being a leader in a historically white space and how making a real change means putting ourselves in the shoes of others, while using our history to inform and learn from our current experience. To learn more visit, www.hrc.org.
Full Episode Transcript
Mungi Ngomane: Hi, I'm, Mungi welcome to the Everyday Ubuntu podcast
Alphonso David: when I'm faced with those circumstances where I meet someone and I see that they don't appreciate my humanity. I see that as an opportunity to show them. The windows
Mungi Ngomane: this week, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with civil rights, lawyer and president of the human rights campaign, Alphonso David.
We discussed his upbringing and the influence that had on his views on the value of democracy, his approach to leadership and the impact of people not appreciating our humanity. We had a few laughs, but Alphonso encourages me and all of you to sit and think about how the law has been used, the impact it has had on different groups and how we can use our history to inform our present experience.
Our conversation was a comfort to me in such turbulent times, knowing that we have leaders like Alphonso at the forefront of the fight for justice. Here's our conversation.
Alphonso, David, welcome to the Everyday Ubuntu podcast.
Alphonso David: Thank you. Thank you so much for
Mungi Ngomane: having me. No, thank you for coming. I'm so excited. So we'll jump right in. And my first question is about our resumes and how they're not a full explanation of who we are. And I'm wondering what's missing from your resume that you think people should know.
Alphonso David: There is so much that is missing from my resume, but I think the most important feature that may not be on my resume is how I lead. I lead with spirit, not with ego. I believe that ego clouds our judgments and it distracts us from our goals. I'm very performance-driven. Person a hard charger, but I really lead with the spirit of my convictions, not by my title and not by my accomplishments.
And that is a feature that may not be easily extracted from looking at my resume.
Mungi Ngomane: Absolutely. And, I guess speaking about you as a leader and the work that you do, what would you say you see as your purpose?
Alphonso David: For me, it's ultimately achieving liberation for marginalized communities. I have practiced law for more than 20 years now.
And I started practicing in the private sector and after clerking for a federal judge I worked in the private sector for a while before I made the decision And tapped into my courage to really do the work that I believe is my life's work. And that is achieving liberation for marginalized communities.
There are so many people around the world who are living under oppressive systems and data, the decks are often stacked against them. And I believe that the more. More of us who can take our skills and use our energies to equalize the playing field, the better it will be for humanity. So my ultimate goal is to achieve liberation for marginalized communities.
Mungi Ngomane: I love that. And, speaking of your life's work and I want to go back to the beginning. You were born in the US but then I know that you spent most of your childhood in Liberia. Could you share a bit about your upbringing and the impact that had on you?
Alphonso David: Sure. So I was born in the United States and then moved to Liberia when I was a year old.
My parents moved back after school and it was A blissful experience for me, at least my memory of my childhood was incredible. Bright and loving. I spent a fair amount of time with family, actually the only family. My father was in politics and I, many members of my family were as well. And so for most of my life in Liberia, it was incredibly blissful experience.
And then In 1980, there was a military coup and my uncle was assassinated and my father was put in prison and we were placed under house arrest. And we lived under those conditions for three years. And that experience for me certainly had an impact in several ways. I got to live in privilege and live in poverty.
I got to live in a democracy and a dictatorship. I got to understand the value of life at a very young age and appreciate how quickly life goes. It's just understanding the speed. Of our experience here on earth for me was an incredibly impactful experience. Knowing people and then the next day they're dead.
Just changes things and changes your perspective on life.
Mungi Ngomane: And, you spoke about living in a democracy and then a dictatorship, and I've read some things where you spoke about the value of democracy and also knowing our sort of purpose in life. And could you speak about how that sort of, pushed you to become a civil rights lawyer?
I know you mentioned that you were in private practice but I know that most of your work is as a civil rights.
Alphonso David: Sure. For me it was I believe the seeds were planted during the war living as a child, living in a democracy, taking certain things for granted and then living in a dictatorship and understanding that my freedom was something that it didn't have And that really informed my thinking as to what I wanted to do with my life and the skills that I wanted to attain in order to achieve those goals. I shifted from medicine to law. When I went through the war, I lost and I shouldn't say lost interest in medicine. I had gained a greater interest in the law and using the law to benefit marginalized communities.
I ultimately became a civil rights lawyer because I saw how the law had been and continues to some extent to be manipulated against the interests of marginalized people. So we have to start with the underlying premise that the law has been used to colonize nations, to legitimize slavery, to legitimize the ban on interracial marriages.
To, legitimize women being treated as less than men to legitimize discrimination and bigotry against LGBTQ people. And as a child, And ultimately as an adult, seeing that through-line of how the law has been and continues to be manipulated to the disadvantage of marginalized communities, I wanted to master the law, understand how the law can be used for good and use my skills to advance that purpose.
Absolutely.
Mungi Ngomane: And, you are the first civil rights lawyer to serve as the president of the human rights campaign. So I'm interested in knowing if there are things that you think you've brought to the role from your experience that others could
Alphonso David: not. Yes. I think for the civil rights lawyers around the world and folks that practice civil rights.
Law we bring a unique perspective to the table. Men, most of us have our skillsets grounded in constitutional law. Understanding how the rule of law informs our individual rights. And that is a unique perspective that I bring to the table that others who are not trained. In-law or civil rights practice specifically, wouldn't bring to the table.
Just understanding that the words on the page, when we look at constitutions around the world, and specifically in the case of the US you know, equal protection under the law due process under the law, those words mean something, but have been interpreted in a way to marginalize groups, even further.
So we have to remember that there are periods in our history where the Supreme court of the United States said that it was legitimate to treat black people as less than human, that it was legitimate to put Japanese Americans in an internment camp. That it was legitimate to criminalize the lives of LGBTQ people.
If we sit with that for a moment and think about how the law has been used, the same law that exists today, right? We've made some modifications to the constitution, but not recently. And a lot of the principles we rely on have existed for decades. So understanding the history. And the impact that the law has had on the lives of racial minorities and LGBTQ people and women brings, helps me bring a very different perspective to the work and a different strategic approach to the work.
Mungi Ngomane: I'm very glad that you're at the helm. It makes me feel a bit better. Thank you. You're also the first person of colour to serve as the president of HRC. And I'm wondering if as a gay black civil rights leader, you occupy this sort of unique space in nonprofit leadership. Could you speak about the experience of being both black and gay and leadership?
Because when I think of the sort of NGO world, it's very much historically, mostly white led. And so I wonder what it's like piloting that. Atmosphere.
Alphonso David: It's interesting in my professional life, I have unfortunately been in many conference rooms, many environments where I am the only gay one, the only black one, the only immigrant.
And I have used that. Reality is probably the best word to use that reality of me being the only one to help change perspectives of people who are in the majority and being the first black man to run the human rights campaign certainly comes with a level of responsibility that I don't take lightly and also an opportunity.
To change the landscape for those that will come after me, the responsibility is making sure that I take this platform to educate and build awareness for people who may not see the depths of indifference that we operate in and making sure that all of us. Appreciate that we bring implicit biases to the table, and that's the first step in getting to that place that we call liberation.
How do we break down the silos? How do we recognize that we bring different implicit biases to the table and how do we recognize them and break them down to move forward without recognizing those things? Living in an environment that's not real, and we're not honouring the history of bias bigotry, discrimination that we all grow up in.
And so I try to use this role as an opportunity to both educate people that may not be black, may not be gay and not be immigrants as to those experiences and how the internal that exists in institutions and the largest society have been used to oppress people of colour and LGBTQ people for such a long time.
So this gives me an opportunity to really break down some of those paradigms that have existed for a long. Yeah,
Mungi Ngomane: I think the reverse of opportunities can sometimes be burdened. And as someone who has been the only black woman in a lot of rooms, I get tired, of having to explain things and whatnot.
And I'm wondering like, do you have those days? Are you like, how do we not understand this already.
Alphonso David: Not often it does happen. I wanted to be careful about how I answered that question. Not often because I often see it as an opportunity. Now, when it does happen, I have to admit their instances where I'm deeply saddened.
I'm disappointed. When it happens that, wow, this is someone that I thought understood the challenges of being black in this country or the challenges of being trans or the challenges of being Bi or whatever the identity is, that's being oppressed. But I often try to move beyond the sadness and the disappointment quickly into the realm of opportunity.
Okay. And it's okay. This person doesn't understand. So this is an opportunity for me, or this is an opportunity for the institution, or this is an opportunity for the collective to help this person move along. And the reason I say that is because if we don't take that perspective, we will end up living in a much more
divided country and global society than we do. Yeah, we know that there are those who are thriving on the separating us and dividing us. We just went through four years of an administration that was built on separating people, built on fear. And I think we have to fight against that because if we don't, we will end up.
Creating two separate countries, two separate global societies where it's us versus them. And if we do that, we won't ever achieve equality. We won't ever achieve liberation. So when I'm faced with those circumstances where I meet someone and I see that they don't appreciate my humanity, I see that as an opportunity to show them.
The windows.
Mungi Ngomane: I really like that and the whole not appreciating your humanity thing really sticks with me because in 2016, right after the election, I wrote an article about how I, wasn't going to debate the value of my humanity with people like this is just not, yeah.
Alphonso David: What can you say?
It gets tiring. I understand.
Mungi Ngomane: What would you say sustains you in tough moments and, difficult moments where you may be disappointed by someone. What sort of propels you forward
Alphonso David: our history? I think about our ancestors. I think about what people went through before we arrived and that puts everything in perspective.
Yeah, because this is not to create hierarchies of pain or hierarchies of discrimination, but it is to appreciate that as Martin Luther King said, the arc of justice is a long one. And when we use our history to inform our present experience, it helps propel us. Doing the work we have to do under very trying circumstances.
We just went through with COVID and unfortunately are still going through was unprecedented, some would say, and then others would say we have the influenza pandemic decades ago, and there are some experiences or some. Some teachings that we could take from that
Mungi Ngomane: to learn,
Alphonso David: but we refuse to learn.
And we look at the HIV aids epidemic that unfortunately is still plaguing many black and brown communities around the world. And what we saw in the 1980s, we could learn from some of those experiences as well. We end up repeating broken cycles if we don't learn from our history.
Mungi Ngomane: Absolutely. And so then what are you most proud of? Because here I am, I'm making you talk about all these difficult things. I'm like, so are you getting annoyed by people? But I want to know, like what you're proud of.
Alphonso David: I am most proud of seeing my true capacity. We live in so many different systems that tell us that we're less than if you're black if you're gay if you're trans if you're a woman that you're less than. And for me being able to tap into my true capacity years and years ago was one of, if not my most powerful.
And endearing personal experiences that I've had, because it helps me break through the artificial barriers that exist to write legislation, to litigate cases, to mobilize the community. To talk to people who don't see my humanity that, is one of the most important tools that I have as a civil rights lawyer, as a leader and as a human being to be able to do this work.
Wow.
Mungi Ngomane: Who are the people who have inspired you?
Alphonso David: There are many of my parents. My father was incarcerated for 18 months, left Liberia, came back to the United States and had to pick himself up from the floor to take care of his family. My mother had to protect us from rebels that would try to come in to attack women in the house and try to rape them.
So my parents for their courage and their tenacity James Baldwin. For being James Baldwin for having the fire to demand that people see him as a human being and recognize all parts of his identities and assign them value Gandhi for everything that he did in his life. Nelson Mandela. The list goes on there, there are many leaders in the past, many people who have really touched me and informed me how I live my life.
Alice Walker and Maya Angelou. The list goes on,
Mungi Ngomane: a lot of people I've spoken to lately have been mentioning James Baldwin and I love it.
Alphonso David: Yeah, it's a Renaissance. It's a Renaissance. He just transcends time. And his messages are as relevant today as they were when he wrote them, which is both sad and prophetic.
Because you would think that what he was preaching about in the fifties and sixties, the seventies, the eighties would have seeped through. In order to really propel us further than where we are now I do believe that his messages seeped through to build momentum for where we are now. But it's also sad to me that we're not further than where we are no.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. That when you read his words like they really do hit you deeply because you feel exactly what he's saying.
Alphonso David: Yes. And when you listen to his voice it just transports you
Mungi Ngomane: and I want to, return to your work a little bit. So from what I understand, I think a lot of people think racism has gone now that Trump is gone, or at least I've seen people say oh, now we don't have to worry about that.
And I think that people may think the same thing when it comes to LGBTQ equality. And the whole, fight that ended with marriage equality. So I think now people are like, okay we're there. We've made it, but how do we educate and prioritize the fight? Because clearly, there is not equality.
Alphonso David: No. We're far from it. Yeah. People can get married today, but they could lose their homes tomorrow. They could get married today, but they could be slain on the streets. Tomorrow and not have any protections under certain hate crime laws. They could get married today, but be denied services in a retail store simply because they're LGBTQ and then we'll send it all
Mungi Ngomane: the way up to the Supreme
Alphonso David: court, right?
68 countries around the globe, criminalize LGBTQ identity and, or same-sex relations. And then some of those countries are punishable by death. Last year, at least 40 transgender and gender non-conforming people were killed in the United States. The highest in any year, since we've been tracking those numbers.
We know that in 29 states in the United States, we don't have comprehensive legal protections for LGBTQ people, which is why we are advocating for equality. Federal legislation that would provide comprehensive legal protections to LGBTQ people. So there is a lot of work to do, and yes, LGBTQ people can get married in the United States.
But they don't have comprehensive legal protections in the United States and certainly not around the globe and also,
Mungi Ngomane: Marriage, isn't the end all be all of the happiness. There are so many other things to make people's life full.
Alphonso David: If I can get married, but I'm not treated as a human being then I'm not really free.
I often talk about the experiences of black and brown transgender people in this country. And I do it often because I want people to put themselves in the shoes of others who don't look like them, who have different experiences from them. So imagine that you are fearful of walking home at night, just imagine that you're fearful of walking home at night because you're transgender and you know that you may be attacked or killed.
Just the concept of freedom. It doesn't align with that reality.
Mungi Ngomane: And you're living in a state of trauma that people just don't understand.
Alphonso David: A state of trauma, a state of fear, a state of anger. And it's important for us to put ourselves in those shoes because that's the only way our democracy will actually work for all of us is if we shift from focusing on ourselves to focusing on our communities.
Yes,
Mungi Ngomane: let's do that. I was speaking to a friend and he mentioned that he sees that sexuality seems to be disappearing from DEI surveys around the country. And so I was like, oh maybe I should ask why do you think that's occurring? What should we do? To make it known that this should be something that is on surveys and questionnaires because this is an important part of people's lives.
Alphonso David: I think there are two things that are happening. One, there is a fear of asking about sexual orientation and gender identity, because those are things that are not easily discernible. You have to ask someone and the person has to disclose. And so there's some discomfort in some institutions about asking those questions.
There are also some concerns about asking those questions because of liability which I reject. And I think that people should ask those questions and people can deny them. We cannot disclose you don't have to answer the questions. But I think it's important that we are counted. We've asked the federal government to incorporate LGBTQ identities in their surveys.
The federal government and in many states around the country in the US do not track sexual orientation and gender identity on their surveys. And president Biden recently issued an executive order that directs federal agencies to really reassess how they're compiling demographic data and include, and to include LGBTQ as identities that they would be tracking.
Now, this is incredibly important because. If we're not trapped, it is as if we don't exist. And when agencies are determining how to allocate resources and how to allocate those resources, meaning how targeted to allocate those resources. If we're not listed on the surveys, then those resources are not going to be provided in the way that we need.
And so we have to support more comprehensive data collection, both from the federal government and the state governments, as well as private institutions. Yeah. I also
Mungi Ngomane: feel like if we don't ask these questions, then everyone sits in their assumptions. And the natural assumption for people or the sort of what we decide is the standard is a heterosexual relationship.
And we just don't think about other people. So we're like, oh, lovely to meet you. Are you married? Married? What's your husband's name? Maybe they don't have a husband.
Alphonso David: Yes is the hetero-normative construct that we live in, that we have to deconstruct. And that is once again, forcing people to really see beyond themselves.
Absolutely.
Mungi Ngomane: Could you share a piece of advice with LGBTQ youth who may be struggling?
Alphonso David: Yes it hearkens back to the point I made about capacity, but. For young people who are struggling, I want to make sure that they take some time and look in the mirror and find a friend. I did that as a child. I did that as a young person, I should say. Because I knew at some point in my life, I would face adversity within my family for being gay.
And I had to really see myself and find myself to make sure that I was grounded when that. When that day comes or would come. And for young people who are struggling right now, I want them to know that there is a community out here to support them. There's a global community of both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people who see them, who see their humanity, who appreciate the unique gifts that they bring to the table.
And. They should just know that we're here to support them and that they can reach out to us at any point in time. They can go onto our website at HRC.Org, and they can get resources that they may need to help them get through any difficult times that they're facing.
Mungi Ngomane: Thank you for saying that.
I'm going to ask you my two final questions. They're my favourite ones. What is your greatest fear for humanity?
Alphonso David: My greatest fear for humanity is that we will stop seeing each other, that we will get further embroiled in the noise and that we will live in a more polarized state because polarization comes down.
If we can't see that climate change is happening, if we can't see that trans people are being demonized and attacked, if we can't see that women are just not being treated the same as men in so many parts of our society, that we won't really fully realize the promise of our democracy. Yeah.
Mungi Ngomane: And so then on a final note, what is your greatest hope for humanity?
Alphonso David: Oh, that we will see beyond ourselves that we will tap into our humanity and actually see each other's humanities. I want to get to a place where I can walk into a room and no, not because someone told me, but no based on my instinct and my intuition that people see my humanity and I'm being treated.
Like everyone else. I want that too. It sounds elusive. And it sounds like it's unattainable, but that's why we have to remember how important it is to dream.
Mungi Ngomane: Absolutely. Alphonso, David, thank you so much for coming on the
Alphonso David: podcast. You're very welcome. Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to speak
Mungi Ngomane: with you.
You too. Take care.
You enjoyed this conversation today and don't forget to hit subscribe and give the show a rating and review wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Follow me at Mungi.Ngomane on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you and get your feedback on the show. I'll be back in a week with a new episode. Thank you for listening.