King's Widow Turns Focus on Voting Rights

[Rose Siding]

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine -- The widow of Martin Luther King Jr. said the right to vote should be open to everyone in a democracy, including those who have been convicted of crimes.

Ending the disenfranchisement of convicted felons is part of the unfinished business of the civil rights movement, Coretta Scott King said at an NAACP event marking the 40th anniversary of the Portland chapter in Maine.
........
King, praising Maine and Vermont as the only states which allow prison inmates to vote, cited estimates that one in four black men in six states are barred from voting because of their convictions.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who attended Saturday's event prior to an appearance at a John Kerry fund-raiser, praised the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for "doing the front-line work on behalf of civil rights and reconciliation."

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-naacp-anniversary,0,560500.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[fugue]

1. I've never understood disenfranchising inmates or excons

How do you get someone to stop committing crimes? You give them a stake in legitimate society.

What is one of the most basic stakes in legitimate society? Voting.

Disenfranchisement just adds another reason for convicts and excons to see themselves as outsiders in society and therefore make it OK to prey upon its members. We should be trying to find as many ways as possible to give them bonds to society, and here we are cutting an easy one to give them.

[JimGinPA]

2. Excellent Point

What makes this all the sadder is the republicans in Florida are using these archaic laws to keep voters (even legitimate ones under the present laws)from the polls for purely political reasons.

[liberalcanuck]

7. Great post and welcome to DU!!

:hi:

[goclark]

5. Well put

[Solon]

3. Again, Coretta Scott King....

stands up for the rights of all, makes me sad that her husband isn't at her side, imagine the further changes in the world they would have brought about. She is a true class act.

[fortyfeetunder]

6. I think she is still her husband's voice!

MLKJr. might have left the earthly world 36 years ago, but I still think she speaks for him and his vision of liberty and justice for all.

[goclark]

4. Thank you Mrs. King

I have been thinking about this a lot.

In registering new voters, a few have told me that are not able to vote, they can't vote until they are off parole.
Others have hinted," I can't vote and I don't want to vote,this country ain't shit!"

Is that how we want someone just released from jail to think? How does that help to keep us safer? They come out of jail with more a jaded sense of how to get along then when they went in.
They come out hating America and the government all together.

You may want to think that when they get out they will feel blessed that they are able to LOVE having all the rights of being restored to full citizenship than before they went in --not my experience after listing to about ten of them.


1.All of this, IMO, is just another Rethug trick to keep African Americans from voting.

2. If we truly wanted to rehabilitate those that have committed offenses, especially when they are released from jail, why can't they vote? Voting makes you feel that you can have some measure of self esteem.
When you have done the time,let them vote! Maybe, just maybe they will feel a part of the process.

3. IF, and that is a big IF, our unpresident had been African American HE would have been in jail for his numerous offenses. The irony of such a crook holding others to a higher standard than HE is held - the irony makes me sick!