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 across the country with felony convictions from the ballot box. Almost 275,000 of those citizens live in Georgia, 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, where Dukes is employed, and the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, 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. 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.

READ MORE

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?