50 years after Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty, tens of millions of second-class Americans are still legally or effectively disenfranchised.
By Daniel Weeks
The Atlantic - Jan 6 2014
Richard says he is done being a criminal—but the law isn't done with
him. Ever since he completed his four-year prison sentence for armed
robbery, the 28-year-old from Montgomery, Alabama, has been struggling
to get back on his feet. He admits to making mistakes—"I dropped out of
school, fell into the street life … did things I shouldn't do"—but now
that he has served his time, he's asking for a second chance.
He says he can't understand why Alabama has a lifetime ban
on people with felony convictions getting food stamps or public
assistance, or why people like him don't have rights when it comes to
housing or getting hired. Although his skills as an electrician are in
high demand, he has so far been unable to find a job or a home on
account of his record. But the biggest insult of all, he says, is his
lack of civil rights in the land of Martin Luther King. Together with
around four million other former felons nationwide—most of them
impoverished—Richard is legally barred from going to the polls. "Some
people don't believe in second chances," he says. "No way my voice can
be heard."
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