Meghan Markle says it's 'good to be home' during livestreamed equality summit

Meghan Markle has said it’s “good to be home” while opening up about being able to lend her voice to the fight for equality in the United States.

On Friday, the Duchess of Sussex spoke with Emily Ramshaw, The 19th’s co-founder and CEO for the organisation’s 2020 virtual summit.

During the conversation, Ramshaw asked the duchess what it has been like returning to the country of her birth amid a wave of racially motivated change following the killing of George Floyd.

According to Meghan, who lived in Canada before moving to England, when she first returned to the United States “after being away for so long,” it was “devastating” to see the current affairs.

“It was so sad to see where our country was in that moment,” she said.

However, according to the duchess, the peaceful protests and social reckoning that arose as a result shifted her feelings of sadness to “inspiration”.

“In the weeks that were happening after the murder of George Floyd, in the peaceful protests we were seeing, in the voices that were coming out, in the way that people were actually owning their role and acknowledging the role that they played either actively or passively in the discrimination of other people, specifically the black community, it shifted from sadness to a feeling of absolute inspiration because I could see that the tide is turning,” she said.

And while Meghan acknowledged that it is “not new” to see this “undercurrent of racism,” she said the change is something she “looks forward to being a part of”.

“And being a part of using my voice in a way that I haven’t been able to of late,” the duchess added. “So, yeah, it’s good to be home.”

Meghan and her husband Prince Harry moved to the United States in March with their toddler son Archie after stepping down from their roles in the royal family.

The couple and their son recently moved into a home in Montecito, California.

During the interview, the duchess also discussed the importance of exercising one's right to vote while reflecting on Prince Harry’s inability to vote.

“I think it’s often challenging for men and women alike to remember just how hard it was to get the right to vote,” Meghan said. “And to be really aware of not taking that for granted. I mean, I look at my husband for example, he’s never been able to vote.

“And I think it’s such an interesting thing to say the right to vote is not a privilege, it is a right in and of itself.”

While there is no law that prohibits it, members of the royal family typically do not vote in an effort to stay neutral.

The duchess’s comments come after she revealed that she will be voting in the upcoming 2020 presidential election because she knows “what it's like to have a voice, and also what it's like to feel voiceless”.

“I also know that so many men and women have put their lives on the line for us to be heard,” she told Marie Claire. “And that opportunity, that fundamental right, is in our ability to exercise our right to vote and to make all of our voices heard."