Scoring the Goal: Activist overcomes his own obstacles to lead
movement helping formerly incarcerated people gain access to the
ballot

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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here

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Friend,

Desmond Meade was visiting his hometown on St. Croix in 2014, several
bottles of rum he had collected for friends in Florida on the table
beside him, when he got the news.

The former drug user who had been convicted of a felony was building
himself a new life. He had climbed out of homelessness, incarceration
and addiction. He had graduated from college and gotten into law
school. But the underpinnings he had constructed were shaky. He was
already on academic probation, and now came word from the law school
that he had failed a key class. He was being expelled.

At that moment, Meade stared at the bottles of rum. He reached into
his pocket, thick with cash. He thought about going on a bender and
spending the money on drugs.

Then Meade, whose journey since that day has made him a national
leader in strengthening the foundations of democracy, thought again.

"The thing going through my mind was, how could I even go back
to the states now? You know, so many people looked up to me,"
Meade said. "I had the money in my pocket to buy all the drugs I
wanted. That was a prime opportunity for me to relapse. But I
didn't. I picked up the phone and I called someone."

When Meade got back to his home in Florida, not only did he manage to
get reinstated in law school; a test determined that he had a learning
disability. He got help and went from almost being kicked out of
school to making the dean's list. He graduated. And just four
years later, he made history.

In 2018, Meade led thousands of volunteers in securing passage of
Amendment 4

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, a Florida ballot initiative that restored the right to vote to
people who had completed their sentences for felony convictions. The
movement had begun with Meade and a small group of volunteers handing
out pamphlets and painting signs.

Then it took off.

Approved by more than 64% of Florida's voters, Amendment 4
re-enfranchised as many as 1.5 million people in the state who are
disproportionately people of color. It was the largest expansion of
voting rights in the country since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that
outlawed discrimination in voting.

In September, Meade became one of 25 people named as a 2021 MacArthur
Fellow
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by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Commonly known
as "genius" grants, the fellowships are among the
nation's most prestigious awards for intellectual and artistic
achievement.

A year earlier, the organization Meade heads, the Florida Rights
Restoration Coalition
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(FRRC), received a $1 million Vote Your Voice
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grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center to support its important
work. Meade's story is told in the latest episode of a new
season of the SPLC's Sounds Like Hate
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podcast.

READ MORE

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In solidarity,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

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working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.

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