Speaker 1: Oh jamaatral in California introduce the biz Tape. You're all
Speaker 1: Things Music, business and Media podcast. Join me, Joe was
Speaker 1: Leski and my co host Colin McKay every Wednesday, where
Speaker 1: we've discussed the breaking news changing the music industry and
Speaker 1: what your favorite artists and creatives are up to. Listen
Speaker 1: to new episodes of the Biz Tape every Wednesday on
Speaker 1: the Nashville Podcast Network, Available on I heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. He's Chuck
Speaker 1: Wigs from Love Country Talk to Chuck, where we bring
Speaker 1: you what's really happening in the country music family. We
Speaker 1: also if you love country, here's the deal. You love
Speaker 1: country music, you can be on the podcast. So if
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Speaker 1: you like, Oh, I want to talk about this? Haul
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Speaker 1: Jason al Dean, Jimmy Allen, Carley, Pierce, Ringa, Lena. Listen
Speaker 1: to new episodes of Love Country Talk to Chuck every
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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcast It was when I was eight years
Speaker 1: old growing up in Selma, when my life was changing
Speaker 1: without me even Norman. My name is Cheyenne Webb christ Burd.
Speaker 1: I was a little eight year old girl growing up
Speaker 1: in George, Washington, Carbo projects. It was rough. Both my
Speaker 1: parents worked in the factories to feed us, to take
Speaker 1: care of us the best way that they knew allowed.
Speaker 1: But I'll never forget the day that I met Dr
Speaker 1: Martin the King Jr. As I would know him to do,
Speaker 1: I would always have to walk past now the historic
Speaker 1: browns Appolaamily Church. In nineteen sixty four, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speaker 1: And his civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council,
Speaker 1: came to Selma, Alabama to start a voter registration campaign,
Speaker 1: and little eight year old Cheyenne was immediately swept up.
Speaker 1: He told us, I want to see you children before
Speaker 1: I leave, because I'm coming back to sell to start
Speaker 1: a movement. But I became very disobedient as that little girl.
Speaker 1: My parents just couldn't do anything with me. They didn't
Speaker 1: want me to be a part of anything that reflected
Speaker 1: being a part of that movement. Despite her parents misgivings,
Speaker 1: Cheyenne began sneaking out of the house to attend community
Speaker 1: organization meetings that were being held at the church. It
Speaker 1: was at those meetings that she was exposed to the
Speaker 1: ministry and principles of Martin Luther King. Dr King would
Speaker 1: talk about the Afican Americans who didn't have the right
Speaker 1: to vote, and he started talking about a march that
Speaker 1: would be taking place and sell my Alabama for African
Speaker 1: Americans to gain their right to vote. I'm Katie Couric
Speaker 1: and this is Turnout this week. We're exploring how America's
Speaker 1: fight for voting rights is wrapped up in the ongoing
Speaker 1: struggle for racial justice. And all I remember is trying
Speaker 1: to explain to my parents about what Dr King was
Speaker 1: talking about. And I asked them that they have the
Speaker 1: right to vote, And of course my dad didn't even
Speaker 1: want to talk about it. He told me, no, black
Speaker 1: folks couldn't vote. But why not? After all, when the
Speaker 1: Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in eighteen seventy, it guaranteed that
Speaker 1: the right to vote could no longer be denied based
Speaker 1: on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. So why
Speaker 1: did so many black people not vote before the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: You may remember from our last episode that author Gilded
Speaker 1: Daniels asked her grandmother that very same question, why didn't
Speaker 1: she vote before the nineteen sixties, and got the same answer.
Speaker 1: Black people didn't vote because they could lose their land,
Speaker 1: they could lose their lives. It was not because they
Speaker 1: did not want to vote. It's because of all these
Speaker 1: mechanisms they were put in place to certainly prevent them
Speaker 1: from doing so. To understand why black people couldn't vote,
Speaker 1: we have to go back about one hundred years to Reconstruction,
Speaker 1: when the country was trying to knit itself back together,
Speaker 1: reintegrating the Confederate States as well as four million formally
Speaker 1: enslaved people into the United States. It was a turbulent time,
Speaker 1: to say the least. After the Civil War, there was
Speaker 1: a period where the violence was so intense against African Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean just this unmitigated rage that they had the
Speaker 1: audacity now to not be property. Dr Carol Anderson is
Speaker 1: an African American studies professor at Emory University an author
Speaker 1: of One Person, No Vote, How voter suppression is destroying
Speaker 1: our democracy? And we had a president Andrew Johnson, and
Speaker 1: he was horrifically racist and shortsighted. And he was fine
Speaker 1: with what Harvard law professor Annette Gordon Reid called the
Speaker 1: slow motion genocide that was happening to black people in
Speaker 1: the South. Well, the radical Republicans, and I love that term.
Speaker 1: We had radical Republicans. The radical Republicans in Congress looked
Speaker 1: up at what Johnson had done and just said not today.
Speaker 1: It may seem a little strange given today's politics, but
Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. Radical Republicans believed blacks were
Speaker 1: entitled to the same political and opportunities as whites. What
Speaker 1: also made them radical was that they wanted the federal
Speaker 1: government to do something about it, to directly intervene in
Speaker 1: the state's affairs to help get the country and all
Speaker 1: of its people to a more perfect union. There was
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six that dealt
Speaker 1: with citizenship to make it clear that black people were citizens.
Speaker 1: Then there was the Reconstruction Act of eighteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: All men twenty one years and over will be registered
Speaker 1: to vote. That meant that black men would be registered
Speaker 1: to vote. Oh. Then the radical Republicans were concerned that
Speaker 1: if they just had these laws at some point there
Speaker 1: may be a shift in the balance in Congress, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure that the rights of all
Speaker 1: American citizens were protected. And that wasn't going to have
Speaker 1: and with just a law that could be easily overridden.
Speaker 1: So they embedded it in the US Constitution. The fourteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment dealt with birthright citizenship. If you're born here, you're
Speaker 1: a citizen. Wow. Then came the Fifteenth Amendment in eighteen seventy.
Speaker 1: The fifteenth Amendment said the United States nor the States
Speaker 1: shall abridge the right to vote on account of race, color,
Speaker 1: or previous condition of servitude. One of the other things
Speaker 1: that they did is they passed the Enforcement Act. It
Speaker 1: was the third Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy one. Because
Speaker 1: the ku Klux Klan was reigning down massive domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: on black people who were trying to vote, and the
Speaker 1: federal government did not have the full authority it felt
Speaker 1: to go in there and stop them. The Enforcement Act
Speaker 1: was to in domestic terrorism and to pretend heck, African
Speaker 1: Americans right to vote. So this is just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like boo bool bool. The radical Republicans were building
Speaker 1: the House of Democracy. What happened next was a period,
Speaker 1: a very brief period in the eighteen seventies of political
Speaker 1: prosperity for blacks in America. In the South, more than
Speaker 1: half a million black men became voters in several states,
Speaker 1: including Mississippi. Black people were the majority of the population,
Speaker 1: and during that decade, Mississippi actually sent two black senators
Speaker 1: to Washington. But then came the backlash. The white state
Speaker 1: legislators looked up in Mississippi said oh, well, we can't
Speaker 1: have this, and so they come up with the Mississippi Plan.
Speaker 1: And what the Mississippi Plan does is it says, how
Speaker 1: do we stop black people from voting without writing a
Speaker 1: law that explicitly says, we don't want black people devunt ah,
Speaker 1: We're going to couch it in the language of democracy,
Speaker 1: protecting the integrity of the ballot box, ensuring that there's
Speaker 1: no corruption in our elections. But what it does is
Speaker 1: it uses the society imposed conditions on African Americans and
Speaker 1: makes those conditions the access to the ballot box. And so,
Speaker 1: for instance, the poll tax, the poll tax couched in
Speaker 1: this language says democracy is expensive, and so if you
Speaker 1: really believed in democracy, you would be willing to pay
Speaker 1: a small fee in order to ensure that this democracy
Speaker 1: runs smoothly. So what you see there is this language
Speaker 1: that flips the responsibility of free and fair elections off
Speaker 1: of the state and onto the individual. So it's a
Speaker 1: wickedly evil rhetorical device and also very effective. And what
Speaker 1: it does is it makes it seem like the poll
Speaker 1: tax is nominal. How hard is it to pay just
Speaker 1: this little fee. Well, after you have had centuries of
Speaker 1: unpaid labor because of slavery centuries, and then you have
Speaker 1: had the Black codes coming out of the Civil War,
Speaker 1: which reimposed slavery by another name, and then after that
Speaker 1: you have share cropping, systemic endemic, societally imposed poverty rained
Speaker 1: down on that black community, so that the poll tax
Speaker 1: actually required between two to six percent of a Mississippi
Speaker 1: farm famili's annual income. Imagine paying two to six percent
Speaker 1: of your annual income to vote. Then there's the literacy test,
Speaker 1: when you have killed the enslaved who dare learn how
Speaker 1: to read to then require the reading of a complicated
Speaker 1: legal text in order to be able to vote. In
Speaker 1: the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the poll tax
Speaker 1: and the literacy test did not violate the Fifteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: because everybody had to pay the poll tax and everybody
Speaker 1: had to read, so how could this be racially discriminatory.
Speaker 1: After that, you saw a number of states revised their
Speaker 1: state constitutions to include the Mississippi Plans disfranchisement policies in there.
Speaker 1: And the result was that by the time we get
Speaker 1: to nineteen forty, only three percent of age eligible African
Speaker 1: Americans in the South are registered to vote three percent.
Speaker 1: The Second World War has already started, and we're looking
Speaker 1: at a democracy that is so warped, is so gnarrowed
Speaker 1: in the United States, where of black eligible voters have
Speaker 1: been blocked from the ballot box in the South, and
Speaker 1: the majority of African Americans lived in the South. By
Speaker 1: the time we get to Selma in Dallas County, where
Speaker 1: Selma is only point nine percent of African Americans age
Speaker 1: eligible African Americans were registered to vote point nine percent.
Speaker 1: We'll return to Selma right after this short phrame. Conquer
Speaker 1: your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast podcast. In each bite sized daily episode, time
Speaker 1: management and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam teaches you how to
Speaker 1: make the most of your time both at work and
Speaker 1: at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to
Speaker 1: get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights
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Speaker 1: Breakfast wherever you get your podcasts. Raffi is the voice
Speaker 1: of some of the happiest songs of our generation. Baby
Speaker 1: So who is the man behind Baby Bluga? Every human
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Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio and Fatherly. Listen every Tuesday on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When P. T. Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the
Speaker 1: ground in eighteen sixty five, what rose from its ashes
Speaker 1: would change the world? Welcome to Grim and Mild presents
Speaker 1: an ongoing journey into the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating.
Speaker 1: For our inaugural season, we'll be giving you a backstage
Speaker 1: tour of the always complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact
Speaker 1: that is the American Side Show. So come along as
Speaker 1: we visit the shadowy corners of the stage and learn
Speaker 1: about the people who were at the center of it
Speaker 1: all in a place where spectacle was king. We will
Speaker 1: soon discover there's always more to the story than meets
Speaker 1: the eye. So step right up and get in line.
Speaker 1: Listen to Grim and Mild Presents now on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: Learn more over at Grim and Mild dot com slash Presents.
Speaker 1: Congress passes the most sweeping civil rights bill ever to
Speaker 1: be written into the law unless we affirms the conception
Speaker 1: of equal In nineteen sixty four, President Lyndon B. Johnson
Speaker 1: signed the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act is
Speaker 1: a challenge to all of us to go to work
Speaker 1: in our communities and our states, in our harms and
Speaker 1: in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice
Speaker 1: in our beloved country. It was a landmark piece of legislation.
Speaker 1: It banned segregation in public places and discrimination in the workplace,
Speaker 1: but with racism running deep. Just listen to Alabama Governor
Speaker 1: George Wallace in nineteen sixty three, there was so much
Speaker 1: it didn't do to ensure blacks had the to vote
Speaker 1: which brings us back to Selma and Cheyenne. I'm Shyenne
Speaker 1: web christ Burg. Dr Martin Luther King's smallest freedom fighter
Speaker 1: and Dr King's voter registration campaign. Beginning in January nine,
Speaker 1: freedom fighters staged non violent demonstrations in Selma to push
Speaker 1: for another piece of legislation guaranteeing all Black Americans the
Speaker 1: right to vote. As I continue to participate in the movement,
Speaker 1: where many other freedom fighters would come from other places
Speaker 1: of the states to join that movement to change things
Speaker 1: into helping fighting for the right to vote, and I
Speaker 1: started bringing them to my home and asking my parents
Speaker 1: could they live with us and stay with us, and
Speaker 1: soon they would be living in our homes. But I
Speaker 1: level forget what was the most traumatic experience of my life,
Speaker 1: and that was the Bloody Sun to March. The march
Speaker 1: was meant to be a big push by organizers to
Speaker 1: register black voters across Alabama and to attract national press coverage.
Speaker 1: The plan was to walk peacefully from Selma to the
Speaker 1: state capital of Montgomery, fifty four miles. Many threats have
Speaker 1: been made about the possibilities of what would happen to
Speaker 1: anyone who would participate on that particular march, and I'll
Speaker 1: never forget my parents talking to me the night before
Speaker 1: and telling me that something could possibly happen to me
Speaker 1: if I participated in that march. Governor Wallace ordered the
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol chief to use quote whatever measure necessary to
Speaker 1: prevent the march from happening. Organizers, including the late Congressman
Speaker 1: John Lewis and jose A Williams, decided to proceed anyway.
Speaker 1: On Sunday, March seven, at around noon, six hundred protesters,
Speaker 1: walking in two lines, left the Brown Chapel Amy Church
Speaker 1: and headed for the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Tucked into that
Speaker 1: group of freedom fighters I'll never forget was young Cheyenne.
Speaker 1: The special instructions that were given by Congressman John Lewis.
Speaker 1: He asked that all marches walk quietly, keep their heads
Speaker 1: straight and forward, and regardless of what happened, everyone would
Speaker 1: be none wound. At the base of the bridge, the
Speaker 1: marchers were met by one hundred and fifty Alabama State
Speaker 1: troopers and sheriff deputies. A state trooper made this announcement
Speaker 1: over a bullhorn, I'll go you. The marchers did not disperse,
Speaker 1: They did not go home or back to their church.
Speaker 1: They stood still, and I remember vividly as I looked down,
Speaker 1: it was like a seal. I saw hundreds of police
Speaker 1: were with tear gas, masks, billy clothes to say, troops
Speaker 1: on horses. I saw the dogs, and my heart had
Speaker 1: begun to rumble and beat fast. I just knew, as
Speaker 1: that little girl, that something was gonna happen for there.
Speaker 1: The troopers advanced slowly at first, but then picking up
Speaker 1: speed until they plowed right through the merchers, knocking them down.
Speaker 1: Racism unleashed its brutality of policy. Tear gas have begun
Speaker 1: to burst in the air, and tear gas is a strong,
Speaker 1: burning sensation where you can't hardly see your way, And
Speaker 1: as people have begun to run, people were being beaten
Speaker 1: down with billy clubs. The dogs and the horses were
Speaker 1: pushing their way into the crowd and trampling people over
Speaker 1: as if they weren't human leadings. You can see people crawling, falling, crying, bleeding,
Speaker 1: and of course my eyes were burning and I was running,
Speaker 1: like many others, trying to make my way home. I
Speaker 1: was very frightened, trembling and really not knowing what to
Speaker 1: do except to get home. And as I was running out.
Speaker 1: I could still see the horses, the dogs still trampling
Speaker 1: over people as they were trying to make their way
Speaker 1: back to Brown's Chapter church. And as I was running,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the late Josean Williams picking me up,
Speaker 1: and my little legs were still galloping in his arms.
Speaker 1: My eyes were burning. I couldn't hardly see. And I
Speaker 1: turned to him and I said to him, in my
Speaker 1: own childish voice, put me down, because you I'm not
Speaker 1: running fast. And that picture of bloody Sunday has never
Speaker 1: left my heart. By my man. The events of that
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon were captured by newscasters and journalists, and that night,
Speaker 1: Sunday Night Movie Will present Stanley Kramer's Academy Award winning
Speaker 1: Motion Picture Judgment at Nuremberg. Forty eight million people were
Speaker 1: watching ABC's broadcast of the star studded movie Judgment at Nuremberg,
Speaker 1: about the trials that took place in Germany following the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: And here in our decision, this is what we stand for, justice,
Speaker 1: true and the value of a single human being. But
Speaker 1: the network interrupted the movie to report on what happened
Speaker 1: in some of that day. We interrupt this program to
Speaker 1: bring you a special report from ABC News. In the
Speaker 1: days and weeks that followed, public support for the protesters surged,
Speaker 1: and a federal judge ruled in favor of the marchers.
Speaker 1: They told us we wouldn't get here. Fourteen days after
Speaker 1: bloody Sunday, olds who said that we would get here
Speaker 1: only over that dead body, Martin Luther King Jr. Successfully
Speaker 1: Led thousands of demonstrators across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and
Speaker 1: onto Montgomery. All the world today knows that we are here,
Speaker 1: and we are standing before the forces of power in
Speaker 1: the state of Alabama saying we ain't gonna let nobody
Speaker 1: turn us arid. And because America could not unsee the
Speaker 1: horrors of that bloody Sunday last March, with the outrage
Speaker 1: of Solomon still Fration, legislators were motivated to do something
Speaker 1: about it and asked the Congress and the people for
Speaker 1: swift and for sweeping action to guarantee to every man
Speaker 1: and woman the right to vote. The bill passed the
Speaker 1: Senate by an overwhelming majority, seven to nineteen. Thus, this
Speaker 1: is a victory for the freedom of the American and
Speaker 1: my parents, but it is also a victory for the
Speaker 1: freedom of the American nation became registered votes and every
Speaker 1: family across this great, entire searching land, and when they
Speaker 1: went to vote, they lived stronger in liberty. They took
Speaker 1: me with That was one of the most prouder to
Speaker 1: be American, happiest momentous feeling and laws for me that
Speaker 1: I've ever had, the Act that you have passed that
Speaker 1: I will sign today. On August six nine, President Lyndon B.
Speaker 1: Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. To understand
Speaker 1: how important that law has become in the history of
Speaker 1: this country, author Gilda Daniel says, you can simply look
Speaker 1: to how presidents have described it. President Ronald Reagan called
Speaker 1: it a crown jewel. Lyndon Baines Johnson said that it
Speaker 1: was monumental, and it was monumental. Indeed, when you think
Speaker 1: about the power of the Voting Rights Act, you do
Speaker 1: think about the ability to elect representatives right for people
Speaker 1: who can represent you and represent your viewpoints. And and
Speaker 1: even President Barack Obama attributed the Voting Rights Act to
Speaker 1: his success because of campaigns like this, essentially said that
Speaker 1: he would not have been possible the Voting Rights Act
Speaker 1: was passed. There was that a Voting Rights Act of
Speaker 1: political and economic and social barriers came down, and the
Speaker 1: change these men and women wrought is visible here today
Speaker 1: in the presence of African Americans who run boardrooms, who
Speaker 1: sit on the bench, who serve in elected office, from
Speaker 1: small towns to big cities, from the Congressional Black Caucus,
Speaker 1: all the way to the old Office because of what
Speaker 1: they did. But in two thousand and thirteen, the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act of nineteen sixty five faced a major setback
Speaker 1: when the Supreme Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act
Speaker 1: had essentially served its purpose and significantly weakened it. That
Speaker 1: led states to implement their own laws. For example, within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of the Supreme Court decision, Texas announced
Speaker 1: it would put in place a strict voter I D law.
Speaker 1: In oral arguments, we space voting discrimination still exists. No
Speaker 1: one doubts that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg led
Speaker 1: the descent the great man who led the march from
Speaker 1: Selma to Montgomery. In her argument, she echoed the words
Speaker 1: of Martin Luther King Jr. Who in nineteen seven presciently
Speaker 1: said the road ahead would not always be smooth. The
Speaker 1: ak of the moral universe is long, he said, But
Speaker 1: it bends towards justice. If there is a steadfast commitment
Speaker 1: to see the task through two completion. That commitment has
Speaker 1: been disserved by today's decision. We'll be right back. What
Speaker 1: grows in the forest trees, Sure, no one else girls
Speaker 1: in the forest, Our imagination I sent of wonder, and
Speaker 1: our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect from
Speaker 1: this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other.
Speaker 1: The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
Speaker 1: near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org.
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
Speaker 1: the AD Council. The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly
Speaker 1: conversation that revolves around the underworld, the criminals and entertainers
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Speaker 1: Heart radios number one for podcasts, but don't take our
Speaker 1: award for it. Find Against the Chronicles podcast and my
Speaker 1: Heart radio app or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: it is Bobby Bones from The Bobby Cast, Nashville's most
Speaker 1: listen to music podcast. In depth interviews with your favorite
Speaker 1: country artists. They tell stories behind the biggest songs in
Speaker 1: country music and share personal stories that you won't hear
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Reba Christapleton, Luke Combs, Dan and Shake, Kelsey
Speaker 1: Ballerini and more. Long form and all from the comfort
Speaker 1: of my own home, so it gets a little more
Speaker 1: laid back. I also talked with the biggest songwriters and
Speaker 1: producers in Nashville. Find out about the process and how
Speaker 1: it goes from being an idea in a writing room
Speaker 1: to a song that you hear on the radio. And
Speaker 1: if you're looking for new music, I share my top
Speaker 1: five new music releases on every week's episode. So if
Speaker 1: you love country music, I think you'll really enjoy this podcast.
Speaker 1: And there are so many episodes to binge. Literally hundreds
Speaker 1: listen to new episodes of The Bobby Cast every Friday
Speaker 1: on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When you look at all of these issues together, you
Speaker 1: see the system. This is a system of discrimination. Again,
Speaker 1: author and law professor Gilded Daniels. It takes a lot
Speaker 1: different names. In the nineteen hundreds we called it a
Speaker 1: poll tax, and the day we called it voter I
Speaker 1: d or it would used to be a literacy test.
Speaker 1: Now it's proof of citizenship. So you might have called
Speaker 1: the different things, but it still has the same impact.
Speaker 1: It still has the same effect, and that is that
Speaker 1: it disproportionately disenfranchises people of color. A big part of
Speaker 1: that system of discrimination, our felony disenfranchise meant laws which
Speaker 1: bar people from voting because of prior criminal convictions, and
Speaker 1: there are some alarming stats that show the racial disparities
Speaker 1: of those laws. In two thousand nineteen, the Sentencing Project
Speaker 1: reported that Black Americans who are old enough to vote
Speaker 1: are more than four times as likely to lose their
Speaker 1: voting rights than the rest of the adult population. In
Speaker 1: some states, one in five black adults is disenfranchised. All told,
Speaker 1: there are about two point two million Black Americans who
Speaker 1: are banned from voting because of past convictions. How do
Speaker 1: you want me to address you, Katie? Really? Okay, alright, no, no, Luckily,
Speaker 1: there are people fighting to right, that wrong. The loss
Speaker 1: of civil rights is not something that's highlighted doing fleet
Speaker 1: bargain right. At the end of the day, what you're
Speaker 1: concerned about is how much time you will or will
Speaker 1: not have to do how soon you can get out
Speaker 1: of President Desmond Mead is the president and executive director
Speaker 1: of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which is dedicated to
Speaker 1: ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination of people who have been incarcerated,
Speaker 1: also known as return citizens. I remember a priest many
Speaker 1: years ago said that a person is caught for committing
Speaker 1: a crime, he's convicted, sentenced to prison, who serves this
Speaker 1: time In the minute he walked out of the prison gates,
Speaker 1: that's when his real sentence starts. Now. The reason I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Desmond is that in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: he was instrumental in passing Amendment four, amendment to Florida's Constitution,
Speaker 1: the amendment that will restore voting rights to one point
Speaker 1: five million people who already paid their debt to society
Speaker 1: and had felony records. That passed, So whatever happens tonight,
Speaker 1: that amendment is going to be hugely important. It was
Speaker 1: an extraordinary achievement personally and professionally because he is also
Speaker 1: a return citizen. As a young man, Desmond was convicted
Speaker 1: on drug charges and spent time in prison for possession
Speaker 1: of a firearm. But his lowest point when he was released,
Speaker 1: I was standing in front of railroad tracks in South Florida,
Speaker 1: waiting on a train that comes I can jump in
Speaker 1: front of it. That day that I stood there, I
Speaker 1: was a broken man. I mean, I was homeless, I
Speaker 1: was addicted to drugs, recently released from prison, unemployed, didn't
Speaker 1: own anything but the clothes on my back, and I
Speaker 1: didn't see a light at the end of the time.
Speaker 1: But own had other plans and that train didn't come,
Speaker 1: and so I crossed those tracks and I walked about
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks further and I checked myself into
Speaker 1: drug treatment. Desmond was able to turn his life around.
Speaker 1: He went back to school and did so well. He
Speaker 1: eventually earned a law degree. Yes, and so the add
Speaker 1: to that what you said, I'm also a first time author, right,
Speaker 1: I just wrote my book let My People Vote, that
Speaker 1: actually talks about the journey. Congratulations, Desmond, that's quite an
Speaker 1: inspiring story. When did you realize that you were not
Speaker 1: considered a full citizen by the state of Florida in
Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand and six. It was the
Speaker 1: first time I realized it because I was introduced to
Speaker 1: for the Rights Restoration Coalition, and that's when I first
Speaker 1: learned about the loss of civil rights. It started taking
Speaker 1: a more prominence when I was in law school and
Speaker 1: and and and really discovered that even though I was
Speaker 1: able to overcome so many obstacles, even though I was
Speaker 1: doing well in law school and I would eventually graduate
Speaker 1: with my law degree, uh, the Florida Bar would not
Speaker 1: even allow me to sit for the exam until my
Speaker 1: civil rights have been restored. And then I guess the
Speaker 1: final blow that was like a punch to the gut
Speaker 1: was in twenty sixteen when my wife Sena ran for office.
Speaker 1: She wanted to uh become a state representative for Florida.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of her campaign, someone approached me
Speaker 1: and said that Desmond, I know that you're excited about
Speaker 1: being able to vote for your wife, and it like
Speaker 1: it was like a blow to my gut. Reminded me, wow,
Speaker 1: does I live in Florida. I can't even vote for
Speaker 1: my own wife, you know, forget the fact that presidents
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico were able to vote. Forget about the
Speaker 1: fact that in Maine of Vermont, you know, presidents are
Speaker 1: able to vote, and throughout this country in Georgia and Texas,
Speaker 1: uh that people are able to vote after they've served
Speaker 1: their time. Because I lived in Florida, I wasn't even
Speaker 1: allowed to vote for my own wife. What were the
Speaker 1: rules that were in place that we're disenfranchising all these people? Well,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, um, prior to Amendment, for anyone
Speaker 1: convicted of any felony offense lost the right to vote
Speaker 1: for life, lost all of their civil rights. Now, let
Speaker 1: me tell you in Florida, that means that if you're
Speaker 1: driving with a suspended license, you can lose the right
Speaker 1: to vote for life. If you burn a tire in public,
Speaker 1: if you go lobster hunt and you catch a lobster
Speaker 1: which tell is too short, you can lose the right
Speaker 1: to vote for life. If you're walking on the beach,
Speaker 1: you know know, admiring the sunset, and you disturbed turtle nesting eggs,
Speaker 1: you would lose the right to vote for life. If
Speaker 1: you're like this gentleman in Broward County on Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: rather who, rather than giving his wife a dozen roses,
Speaker 1: released twelve red balloons in the air. You could lose
Speaker 1: the right to vote for the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: and the only chance that you would get those rights
Speaker 1: back were if you were lucky enough to appear before
Speaker 1: the governor and beg him for clemency. Right, bravo, let
Speaker 1: their feet and understanding that their decision about whether or
Speaker 1: not to let you be able to vote again is
Speaker 1: a purely arbitrary decision. You know, let me let me
Speaker 1: give you some numbers. You know, the current policy that
Speaker 1: we were under before Amendment four require the person to
Speaker 1: wait either five or seven years after they have completed
Speaker 1: their sentence before they're able to just apply to have
Speaker 1: their civil rights restored. And then once they apply, we've
Speaker 1: seen waiting times between eight to ten years, and so
Speaker 1: you're seeing a person waiting upwards of eighteen years after
Speaker 1: they have applied to have their righteous stored, and when
Speaker 1: they walk into the climacy hearing, they stand less than
Speaker 1: point zero zero one percent of a chance of getting
Speaker 1: their righteous story. And you know what, this is no
Speaker 1: longer theoretical right because I myself just went through this
Speaker 1: process right to where over nineteen years. Not only have
Speaker 1: I remained crime free, but I have dedicated my life
Speaker 1: to give it back to my community, so much so
Speaker 1: that I've been named Central Floridian of the Year, Floridian
Speaker 1: of the Year, and even Time magazine one hundred most
Speaker 1: influential person in the world. And I appear before the
Speaker 1: Clinacy Board and they can't even make a decision on that.
Speaker 1: And so that is the type of process that have
Speaker 1: been in place prior to him and been four and
Speaker 1: so you know, we knew that, you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, that was too much power for
Speaker 1: four politicians to hold to decide which American citizens get
Speaker 1: the vote and which don't. Right, no matter what their
Speaker 1: political party is, whether it's Democrats, Republicans, or whatever. No
Speaker 1: politicians to have that absolute hour like that, because that
Speaker 1: leads room for partisan politics to impact those decisions, right,
Speaker 1: especially when their arbitrary decisions. And so that was one
Speaker 1: of the flashpoints that made me believe that we had
Speaker 1: to take that power out of the hands of politicians
Speaker 1: and put it in the hands of the people. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what we did. I wanted to ask you, you're
Speaker 1: talking about felony convictions, but putting twelve balloons into the
Speaker 1: air instead of giving someone twelve roses. That's a felony.
Speaker 1: That's a third degree felony in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: And a quick Google search you will find the story
Speaker 1: he released the twelve balloons in the air and the
Speaker 1: and the law enforcement officer seeing them and promptly arrested.
Speaker 1: So when we hear I think, when the average person
Speaker 1: here's felony Desmond, they think a serious crime. And you know,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something and that and that, uh Katie,
Speaker 1: let me tell you that is part of my mission
Speaker 1: is to really expose how politicians can use rhetoric right
Speaker 1: to divide our country right and and and they divided
Speaker 1: through through hayden and and fear and create these narratives
Speaker 1: that make people think about something that actually doesn't exist. Right.
Speaker 1: And so, for instance, when you talk about the felony convicts,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna think of the worst person in the world,
Speaker 1: and you're more than likely going to think African American
Speaker 1: because we're paraded more than anyone else. But here's some realities.
Speaker 1: Even though Florida convicts about a hundred and seventy thousand
Speaker 1: people a year, less than of them or even sentence
Speaker 1: to prison. And then even of the overwhelming number of
Speaker 1: that small group are there for less serious offenses. When
Speaker 1: we looked at the entire population of people who have
Speaker 1: been convicted and incarcerated, what we found was that people
Speaker 1: convicted of murder and all kinds of felony sexual offenses
Speaker 1: only made up you ready for this, less than three
Speaker 1: percent of the total amount of people right who have
Speaker 1: been impacted. Right. And so we we we know that,
Speaker 1: you know that we have this challenge of fighting back
Speaker 1: against a narrative that's been created not by the people
Speaker 1: but by politicis that seek to divide this country, because
Speaker 1: as long as this country is divided, they can't be
Speaker 1: held accountable. Right. And so though we fight back at
Speaker 1: that at every turn, every opportunity that we have to
Speaker 1: really set the story straight, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it is in society's
Speaker 1: best interests that don't matter what a person does, right,
Speaker 1: if they're convicted, if their sentenced, they paid their debt,
Speaker 1: and they're they're released back into our community or already
Speaker 1: in our community, it's in everyone's interests for them to
Speaker 1: be able to successfully reintegrate it is in everyone's interests
Speaker 1: for all of our citizens to participate in election because
Speaker 1: the more people that vote, the more vibrant our democracy becomes.
Speaker 1: And that's good for everybody. Tell us about Florida Amendment
Speaker 1: for because you designed it. Yeah, Yeah. Amendment for was
Speaker 1: um basically to create a pathway. And and I tell
Speaker 1: people today that in spite of whatever subsequent legislation may
Speaker 1: have emerged, the one thing that we know is that
Speaker 1: we've already won. We won when we pass Amendment for because,
Speaker 1: now enshrined in our states Constitution, is an alternate pathway
Speaker 1: to be able to participate in our democracy without having
Speaker 1: to beg any politicians. It restores voting rights two individuals
Speaker 1: who have been convicted of a felony offense who have
Speaker 1: completed their sentence, as long as they have not been
Speaker 1: convicted of murder or they have not been convicted of
Speaker 1: felony sexual offenses. If those individuals have been convicted of
Speaker 1: those crimes, there are still a pathway to be able
Speaker 1: to vote again, but they would have to go through
Speaker 1: the clinacy process. But everyone else, once they completed their senates,
Speaker 1: they have the right to vote. We had over five
Speaker 1: for one million people that voted yes for amendment. For
Speaker 1: we had a million more people that voted for us
Speaker 1: than any candidate that was running for governor, which shows
Speaker 1: the broad base of support that we had. And we
Speaker 1: showed the world. We showed the state of Florida that
Speaker 1: love can, in fact, when the day that we can
Speaker 1: bring people together, that we don't have to tear each
Speaker 1: other down, that we could come together along the lines
Speaker 1: of humanity, in spite of our political differences, in spite
Speaker 1: of our racial anxieties, that we can bring people together
Speaker 1: and move major issues that benefit society. But love didn't last, apparently, Desmond,
Speaker 1: because after this was passed in two thousand and eighteen,
Speaker 1: things got complicated. The Republican legislature passed a law s
Speaker 1: B seven oh six six, basically clarifying the amendment and
Speaker 1: saying in order to register to vote, felons had to
Speaker 1: pay their financial penalties. Out of the nearly one point
Speaker 1: five million felons who regained the right to vote, seven
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four thousand lost the right because of debt.
Speaker 1: I won't say, Katy, I wouldn't say that they lost
Speaker 1: the right. I said that they were delayed access to
Speaker 1: the right that was conferred upon them, you know, and
Speaker 1: then the other piece of that. Okay, yes, seven hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy four thousand individuals have some type of legal
Speaker 1: financial obligation that they have to satisfy before being able
Speaker 1: to register the vote. But what that also says is
Speaker 1: that there are five to six hundred thousand returning citizens
Speaker 1: that don't have that barrier in front of them, that
Speaker 1: they can also right now today register to vote and
Speaker 1: be a part of our democracy. What my ancestors had
Speaker 1: to fight through the lynchings and the and the dogs
Speaker 1: and the fire hoses for that. This franchise is old,
Speaker 1: dog going important that it needs to be accessible to
Speaker 1: everyone because the one time, you know, when I walk
Speaker 1: in that voting move, Katie, I have just as much
Speaker 1: power as Jeff Bezos. I have just as much power
Speaker 1: as Bill Gates. That is the one equalizing force in
Speaker 1: this country is that voting booth. And it should not
Speaker 1: be barricaded. It shouldn't We should not be prevented from
Speaker 1: being able to experience that just because we're too poor.
Speaker 1: Who will be able to vote in Florida on November three,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, on November three, They're gonna be like
Speaker 1: returning citizens who have satisfied their legal obligations or have
Speaker 1: had others satisfied their legal obligations for them, and have
Speaker 1: registered to vote. We're gonna be able to show up
Speaker 1: and participate in election. And you know what, Katie, They're
Speaker 1: not coming by themselves. They're bringing their family, they're bringing
Speaker 1: their friends, they're bringing their immunity to celebrate the expansion
Speaker 1: of democracy. And I know on November three that they're
Speaker 1: going to be people that's gonna be walking into that
Speaker 1: voting booth with their shoulders thrown back in their chests,
Speaker 1: out right knowing that they are now finally a part
Speaker 1: of this democracy. And there's gonna be some tears. I
Speaker 1: know they are. I know I'm gonna be crying right
Speaker 1: knowing that that we exist and that I've voiced the matter.
Speaker 1: And they're people that's waiting. There are people that's literally
Speaker 1: dying to get to that point right there. And so
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what happened. While Desmond Mead
Speaker 1: continues to fight on behalf of return citizens in court,
Speaker 1: others are fighting on the ground or over zoom. Good morning, everyone.
Speaker 1: My name is and if Scott. I'm from the League
Speaker 1: of women voters. And what I do with three entry
Speaker 1: programs is I give voter education, registration and thatte Scott
Speaker 1: volunteers to help return citizens understand their rights. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of misinformation out there what people with criminal records
Speaker 1: can and can't do very state by state. But luckily,
Speaker 1: and that's a history buff who love sharing her research,
Speaker 1: most people in New Jersey do not know. The law
Speaker 1: that prevents people who are incarcerated and previously on albervation
Speaker 1: has been in effect since eighteen forty four. The half
Speaker 1: a dozen people who have joined this call have been
Speaker 1: recently released from prison and are on parole or probation.
Speaker 1: The fact that they now have the right to vote
Speaker 1: in New Jersey is a new law that went into
Speaker 1: effect just this past March. And when anyone who is incorpirated,
Speaker 1: as soon as they leave, they can register immediately too.
Speaker 1: Now what a lot of people do is they asked me,
Speaker 1: is well, I committed two, three, four whatever felonies, so
Speaker 1: I can't vote in New Jersey. And that's not true.
Speaker 1: Once you're release from any correctional facility, you can register
Speaker 1: to vote. There's a lot that a NETTE has to cover,
Speaker 1: like key voting deadlines to receive your application is October thirteenth.
Speaker 1: How to fill out the registration forms and how to
Speaker 1: send them in. If you do it online, you're okay.
Speaker 1: If you don't, just post it on it and you
Speaker 1: print your own form and she does it one voter
Speaker 1: at a time. Does anyone have any questions for me?
Speaker 1: What is the name of the website to register? Okay?
Speaker 1: What you can do? Use your local one, which is
Speaker 1: um Middlesex County dot James. She loves her work, but
Speaker 1: says the hardest part is hearing why people think the
Speaker 1: voting isn't important. I think it's a waste of time.
Speaker 1: I don't want, I don't vote, I never have voted.
Speaker 1: It doesn't count. It means nothing. Okay, Now, if they
Speaker 1: saw me, I would be read as a beat tomato
Speaker 1: and anything else you could say. Because I get so
Speaker 1: upset when the citizen does this, because they don't know
Speaker 1: the history. So then what I do is I go
Speaker 1: back and tell them. When I was a young child
Speaker 1: growing up, every night on the news, I watched people
Speaker 1: trying to register, not vote. Register. They were had dogs
Speaker 1: set upon them, the police beat them with batons, they
Speaker 1: were fire holes and the most horrible, horrible thing. Of all,
Speaker 1: they were killed, so nothing else. I vote in their honor,
Speaker 1: and some will say to me, oh, oh I never
Speaker 1: knew that. Oh okay, our register and there's a few
Speaker 1: that will say, yeah, okay, well that was then, But
Speaker 1: I still don't see no use in it. And then
Speaker 1: I have to tell myself and that you can't convince everyone.
Speaker 1: If you convince eight or nine out of ten, you're
Speaker 1: doing good. The tent leave and maybe another day. But
Speaker 1: in that Scott refuses to quit. Well, I'm hoping all
Speaker 1: of you will register, and more than anything, I'm hoping
Speaker 1: you will vote this year. Whoever it's for, it doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: but please exercise your right to vote. I thank all
Speaker 1: of you. I wish you the very best, and if
Speaker 1: you have any questions and anything else that I can
Speaker 1: help you with registration. I started will next week on Turnout.
Speaker 1: You've taken the challenge and you've chosen to be a
Speaker 1: disinformation fighter. Put on your cape Democracy Heroes, it's time
Speaker 1: for your training. You are a newly deputized troll buster.
Speaker 1: We're so glad to have you on our team. Voter
Speaker 1: suppression looks a little different these days, and our viral
Speaker 1: virtual world. How to combat the spread of disinformation. That's
Speaker 1: next week on Turnout. Hey, listeners, before we go, I
Speaker 1: just want to remind you that though we're getting down
Speaker 1: to the wire, there is still time in some states
Speaker 1: to check your registration to make sure you can vote
Speaker 1: in this very important election. To make that process easier,
Speaker 1: I've partnered with the social justice organization Do Something. Find
Speaker 1: out how to check your registration or registered to vote
Speaker 1: by texting Katie to three A three eight three. You
Speaker 1: can also go to vote dot org to find out
Speaker 1: where and how to vote in your state, and of course,
Speaker 1: subscribe to my morning newsletter wake Up Call for the
Speaker 1: latest election information. Turnout is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Media and Katie Currek Media. The executive producers are Katie
Speaker 1: Curic and Courtney Litz, Supervising producers Lauren Hansen. Associate producers
Speaker 1: Derek Clements, Eliza Costas and Emily Pento. Editing by Derrick
Speaker 1: Clements and Lauren Hansen, Mixing by Derrick Clements. Our researcher
Speaker 1: is Gabriel Loser and special thanks to my right hand
Speaker 1: woman Adriana Fasio. You can follow me in all my
Speaker 1: election coverage at Katie Currek. Meanwhile, Yes, I'm Katie Currect.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening everyone. We'll see you next time.
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