NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SETTLES IMPORTANT VOTING RIGHTS CASE AND
ALLOWS VOTER EDUCATION EFFORT TO CONTINUE
(Tuesday, October 21, 2008 - New York, NY) Today, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) settled the lawsuit it filed against the Alabama Department of Corrections in federal court earlier this month on behalf of Reverend Kenneth Glasgow. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, the parties began settlement discussions under which Reverend Glasgow last week resumed his non-partisan ministry to eligible voters currently incarcerated in the state’s correctional facilities.
The lawsuit was filed after the Alabama Department of Corrections cancelled Reverend Glasgow’s ministry following the Alabama Republican Party’s objection to his voter education activities.
“Now I can continue the ministry that God gave me: helping to give a voice to the voiceless by reaching out to people in Alabama’s correctional facilities who are eligible to vote,” said Reverend Glasgow. “The ministry is so critical because too many in Alabama’s correctional facilities who are eligible to vote don’t know it.”
While incarcerated six years ago, Reverend Glasgow joined a prison ministry that addressed the importance of personal and civic responsibility and restoration as personal virtues and as cornerstones for one’s community. He was struck by the prison ministry’s focus on exercising the right to vote as a means to restore an him to his community and vowed to give back by starting his own ministry. Upon his release in 2002, Reverend Glasgow founded The Ordinary People Society, a not-for-profit organization in Dothan, Alabama. In 2004, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole restored Reverend Glasgow’s voting rights.
“Today’s settlement ensures the result that we sought and that Alabama’s constitution and laws require — eligible people in correctional facilities will be able to participate in Reverend Glasgow’s ministry and learn about their voting rights prior to close of registration for the upcoming November 4 general election,” said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.
Ryan P. Haygood, Co-Director of LDF’s Political Participation Group at LDF who represented Reverend Glasgow added: “This significant development strengthens the integrity of Alabama’s democratic processes by guaranteeing that eligible voters who seek to vote will have their voices heard.”
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was joined in the lawsuit by Herman Johnson, of Wiggins, Childs, Quinn & Pantazis.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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2 comments:
I'm not a Second Class Citizen, I'm a Second Chance Citizen
As I sit here and reflect on this last month's activities I don't know whether to be happy or just cry. Because I've went through so much and had so many things and people exposed.
I listened to God and committed myself to this work by His calling and I've wanted to quit so many times, and believe it or not now is definitely one of those times.
The blatant biasness, racism, and disrespect for humanity that I've witnessed in this issue of restoring People's lives by restoring their rights just overwhelmed me.
Maybe people just don't understand that when a person loses their right to vote they lose so much more of their life necessities. We can't get public housing, public assistance, student loans or pell grants to better educate ourselves, a business license, and housing and jobs are few and scarce for an ex-felon.
My real challenge is that this is supposed to be a religious, spiritual society that loves humanity and their neighbors, but for some reason those who have made a mistake are not considered citizens, neighbors, and less than human I guess. Yet these are our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters. People who we grew up with, and people we went to school with and know.
We are talking about fellow human beings who have made a mistake and committed a crime that does not involve Moral Turpitude.
This was a term used in slavery times in order to consider a person vile or defain, not a full citizen. Now here in 2008 over a hundred years later the underlying racism and biasness of those of us who call ourselves Christians, Muslims, Methodist, Baptist, etc. seeps out when we find out that a person that has made a mistake has the same rights we have if they have not committed a crime of Moral Turpitude
Yet we read the Bible, Quran and other religious books claiming that we love everybody and want to help restore people's lives, but now that the opportunity has come our prejudices come to the forefront.
Classism steps up and we say they shouldn't have the same rights that we have they made a mistake.
My question is" what if God was like that? What if He felt the same way? would any of us be here?
Have you ever ran a stop sign or red light? have you ever got sick and went to the hospital? Why do you think that God put in Matthew 25: 33-46 " have you visited those who are sick and in prison ". He put those two together, why?
Because he knew that those in prison were sick as well and needed ministering to.
When we went to the prisons we only targeted those with possession of drug charges only. Those who would be out in about a year or two anyway. It's cost effective to give a person treatment instead of incarceration. It cost taxpayers approximately $13,000 to $29,000 a year to house a person in prison, while it only cost us $4,300 to $8,000 a year to give them treatment depending on what state you live in, and cheaper than that for college.
We have 5.3 million people in the U.S. that are disenfranchised and in the State of Ala. we have 250,046 who have lost their rights!
If we are productive citizens then shouldn't we be producing productive citizens. Every seed produces of it's own kind so what's wrong with us.
Crimes not involving Moral Turpitude are non-violent victimless crimes that does not cause any hurt, harm, danger, and suffering to anyone else. ( as close of a definition we can come up with ).
These are people who have done things that hurt themselves.
If we truly wanted to diminish crime, diminish recidivism, diminish overcrowded prisons, and diminish parent less children, then we would start engaging those incarcerated into civic participation and transforming their mind before they get out of prison.
The renewing of the mind need to come before release from jail or prison, not after they are released with a bus ticket and $10. Because when they meet these obstacles and disappointments they have no structure or substance to hold on to.
Our children are dropping out of school at enormous rates and we spend more on prisons than on education, more on prisons than our elderly and our poor.
In 1901 when they wrote the Alabama Constitution they must've had a different perception of these crimes not involving Moral Turpitude than the people of today. Or did they have more respect for human life than we do now? But our forefathers seen this differently and most of them were Republicans, conservatives and devout men of God.Maybe we need to stop looking at human beings and look at HUMANITY!!!
After the Civil War in Oct 1864 the Sons of the Confederate went to Washington to get their rights restored and pardons for crimes of treason, and heinous acts committed to human beings ( Crimes of Moral Turpitude ), so why now when we talk about crimes not involving Moral Turpitude do we want to take people's rights hmmm!
There's always been some type of trick to keep us divided whether it was Jews and Gentiles, Black and White, and now Felon or Non Felon. When will the prejudices end or will they ever?
When an average citizen breaks the Law, they go to jail, but when those who suppose to uphold the Law break it, the people suffer and become the victims.
My cousin told me that I must realize that for 105 years anyone could have said something about this and a few did like; Dr. Rep. Yvonne Kennedy, Sen. Bobby Singleton, Ryan Haygood, Bryan Stevenson, Gabriel Sayegh, myself, and a few others. But most of those who could've didn't, so please don't get mad at those of us who do. This is a continuation of our struggle in this Civil Rights Movement and The Ministry of God.
If you're like me you have no choice but to fight for Fairness, and Equality no matter who or what the naysayers think or say!
However it is quite amusing to me when those who are against you and the work God gave you come out publicly like they were with you all the time, but wasn't anywhere around for the fight, and as a matter of fact tried to stop you and wouldn't help.
But I'm glad you see the light now, and God has opened your eyes and you're here now!
We've Came From The Back Of The Bus, To The Front Of The Prison,
The Struggle Continues!!!
and that proves to me that I'm not a
Second Class Citizen
but a
Second Chance Citizen!
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