The event went great. Student from UK KFTC, UK College Democrats, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, LASO, Amnesty International and many other gathered to learn about the movement to restore the vote to former felons.
We started the night with a brief showing of the ACLU’s documentary Democracy’s Ghosts. The film chronicles the efforts of former felons in Rhode Island as they attempt to get their voting rights back. The movie was very emotional and as I watched the film I could not stop myself from feeling the pain that these people go through. The people in the movie make it abundantly clear how important the right to vote is and how those who do not have it are regulated to second class citizenship in this country.
After the film former UK basketball player Tanya Fogle and Rep. Jesse Crenshaw spoke about how the issue impacts UK. Mrs. Fogle told how she became a felon and the difficulty’s she had to deal with before she could vote again. Rep. Crenshaw explained his bill that would give felons their rights back and his efforts in Frankfort to change the laws. Both were very passionate and spoke with great eloquence.
KFTC has been working on this issue for some time now. When we registered voters in 2004 elections we targeted lower income communites. Many people told us that they would love to vote, but that they couldn’t because they were felons. We soon discovered that this was a very widespread problem. Over 168,000 Kentuckains can’t vote because of this. That amounts to 1 out every 17 Kentuckians overall and 1 out of every 4 African Americans.
This cannot stand. KFTC had led major lobby efforts in Frankfort and will continue to do so until all Kentuckians have the right to vote.
