Shadow of Jim Crow: Georgia activists fight back against laws designed
to block voting rights for people with felony convictions
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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
They met in a prison choir called, in what now seems like prophecy,
Voices of Hope.
One 20 years old and the other just 15 when they were convicted of
felony crimes, Page Dukes and Kareemah Hanifa didn't have much
hope when they landed at the largest women's prison in Georgia.
Even when they both gained coveted places in the chorus, entitling
them to travel outside prison walls to performances around the state,
the confidences they shared on long bus rides about what they would do
when they got out seemed, Hanifa recalled, like daydreams.
But today Hanifa, 44, and Dukes, 35, are not only out of prison but
fulfilling their personal ambitions. Hanifa is a bachelor's
degree candidate in psychology on track to pursue a master's
degree; Dukes is a communications associate with a nonprofit.
They are now lifting their voices in a new way.
The longtime friends are among the leaders of a growing movement in
Georgia to secure the right for people with felony convictions to do
something the U.S. Constitution is supposed to guarantee all its
citizens - vote.
"Why shouldn't I be allowed to cast a ballot and have a
say in my government?" Hanifa said of criminal
disenfranchisement laws that block her and 5.2 million other people
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across the country with felony convictions from the ballot box.
Almost 275,000 of those citizens live in Georgia
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, according to the Sentencing Project, which tracks such laws. Of
those, nearly 60% are Black.
"OK, I committed a crime," Hanifa said. "I served my
time in prison. But then for 50 more years am I still being penalized?
Did society forgive me? Or not? Or am I still being punished? You
forgave me enough to release me from that physical prison, but not
from that barless prison that holds people like me back from the power
to have our say in our communities, to have something to say about
education, about who represents us."
Working with community organizations like the Southern Center for
Human Rights
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, where Dukes is employed, and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network
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, where Hanifa is the lead organizer, the Southern Poverty Law Center
is organizing a legislative campaign to restore voting rights for
Georgians with felony convictions.
Relics of Jim Crow
While dozens of countries allow all people held in prison to vote,
only two states, Vermont and Maine, as well as Washington, D.C., do so
in the U.S. And in 11 states, people lose their voting rights even
after they have been released. In Georgia, the ban lasts through
probation and parole or supervision, which can extend decades after
serving time. Even registering to vote could land you back in
jail.
In Georgia, the largest factor for disenfranchisement is the number of
people on probation
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. Georgia's probation rate is the highest in the U.S., with 1 in
17 adults on probation. This is nearly double the probation rate of
Idaho, the state with the second-largest probation rate, and more than
triple the national rate.
The actual wording of the law in Georgia bans voting for people
convicted of felonies "involving moral turpitude." But
because the law fails to define what moral turpitude is, in practice
it applies to all felony convictions.
Further, because the state requires formerly incarcerated people to
satisfy their legal financial obligations before terminating their
parole and probation, Georgia has the highest rate of people under
supervision due to felony convictions in the country. The majority of
people under supervision are individuals convicted of nonviolent
crimes, such as property and drug offenses.
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?
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