The termination of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study “Structural Racism as a "Third hit" on kidney outcomes of Black individuals with APOL1 risk alleles” wasn’t just a bureaucratic decision—it was a gut punch to communities like mine. As a Puerto Rican man from Spanish Harlem, a kidney transplant recipient, and a member of the community advisory board for this study, I knew firsthand what this research meant, and what its cancellation took from us.