29 Search results for "felons"

On Tuesday, Amendment 4, a new Florida state law, went into effect and restored the voting rights of over 1 million with felony charges.

Governor Terry McAuliffe is working to reinstate the voting rights of 13,000 formerly incarcerated people in Virginia in order to ensure that they are able to vote in the presidential election this November. The move is his second this year and is an important step towards ensuring that all people have the right to vote […]

The political framework in the state of Maryland is building up to make the next election very interesting. Just a couple of weeks ago, DeRay McKesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, announced that he’s running for mayor of Baltimore. Now, Maryland has given recently released felons the right to vote in the upcoming election.

During his speech at Georgetown University Law Center, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that people with past felony convictions should have their voting rights restored. Currently the majority of ex-felons do not have the right to vote, despite serving time for crimes committed in the past. 

Virginia’s Republican Governor Bob McDonnell raised eyebrows recently, announcing that he will do the right thing and make it easier for non-violent offenders to have their voting rights reinstated.

Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Education & Schooling, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. What are the implications of charter and private schools in communities of color? How do we counteract anti-Black textbooks and teachers in our children’s education? How did you heal from bullying […]

The upcoming November midterm elections poses a unique opportunity for Florida’s 13 million voters to assist in prison reform. After 850,000 Florida voters signed a petition to demand “Amendment 4”, a voting rights restoration bill, be on the November election ballot, Florida may finally allow convicted felons the right to vote without an elaborate clemency application […]

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, which recently reached the eighth anniversary of its original publication date in 2010, was banned from New Jersey state prisons by its Department of Corrections even though by their own admission the book was being used in prison curriculum. In a letter to the Department of Corrections, the American […]

For most of my schooling, I was treated as somewhat of a golden child. As an advanced placement student in a majority Black district, where most of the other Black kids weren’t surpassing their white peers scholastically like I was, the fact that I seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of my ivy-league older […]

[Warning: This post contains graphic content.] Alton Sterling, 37, was shot by Baton Rouge, LA police officers outside of a convenience store he was selling music in front of early Tuesday morning. Video taken by witnesses show Sterling being  stunned and thrashed around by officers, pinned to the ground and having a gun pointed at […]

President Barack Obama has proven to be a stern believer in the idea of second chances in life. This even includes a lucky few convicted felons that he elects to offer clemency – reduced to time served.

BYP100 has created the Agenda to Build Black Futures and it is a must-read. They have outlined problems, solutions, and their proposed agenda for the preservation Black lives on their website. The problems that BYP100 are fighting include the state of Black Youth in the U.S. economy where “it is hard to measure the extent […]