The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) began as a project of the ACLU in 2003. In 2007 the state of Florida began allowing automatic restoration of voting rights for certain felons (returning citizens) after completing their sentence. In response the FRRC launched a voter outreach campaign targeting returning citizens whose rights had been restored. In 2011, Florida, under Governor Rick Scott, reversed its 2007 rights restoration policy, bringing to a stop of civil rights in the state.
In 2012 FRRC became an official organization, with Desmond Meade, a returned citizen, as its president. Most of its members and leadership are returning citizens who have the passion to keep on moving on. Returning citizens have their lives at stake, are motivator for success. Allies are welcome to join. FRRC Branches are distributed across Florida. Any organized group can become a FRRC branch and follow its guidelines.
FRRC members promote four goals for returning citizens to achieve:
1.Voter Restoration
2.Employment
3.Housing
4.Education
They know from experience that these goals will give their colleagues full citizenship and dramatically reduced recidivism.
The FRRC’s mission is to advocate for all returning citizens to achieve these goals, through legislative initiative and registering and educating voters. And when necessary to fight the battles in the courts.
In 2013, the FRRC launched a ballot initiative to put voting rights restoration in front of Florida voters. This galvanized a wide coalition of allies and like-minded human rights organizations such as the Florida NAACP and the LWV Florida. This led to a march to Tallahassee to protest the offices of State Attorney Pam Bondi’s and the Governor Scott’s. In 2014 The FRRC was invited to testify before the UN Committee for Human Rights and at President Obama’s White House.
During 2015the focus was to build grassroots for supporters to sign petitions to get the citizens’ initiative on the 2018 ballot. It became Amendment 4. Between 2010 and 2016, the number of disenfranchised Floridians grew between 150,000 to 1.686 million, including 1 in 5 of Florida’s Black voting-age population. The Coalition collected close to a million petition signatures, putting Amendment 4 on the ballot. Sixty-four percent of Florida’s voters voted for Amendment 4, restoring the rights to 1.4 million people. It seemed that in the flush of victory, voting rights had brought the end of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida.
Alas, victory was short lived. The Florida legislature responded to Amendment 4 with the passage of SB 7066, requiring returning citizens to pay back all fees and fines resulting from their convictions, disqualifying 750,000 Floridians from voting.
The Florida legislature intended that returning citizens would find it almost impossible locate their records, and therefore not be able to pay their fines and fees, thus keeping them disenfranchised. There is no centralized court records data base.
The FRRC responded by collecting $30 million to support returning citizens in paying their fines and fees. They also received the support from pro-bono lawyers to guide their clients through the difficult process of finding where their fines and fees were recorded in Clerks of Court records in 67 counties. Once again, the state NAACP and LWV and others stepped in to help. By 2020, 190,000 Florida returning citizens were registered to vote in November elections.
The FRRC continues to advocate to lower the felony threshold in the state, to enact probation reforms, as well as legislation to clear the felony records of juveniles who completed a diversion program. Between 2019- 2021 the FRRC has registered 100,000 voters.
The FRRC continues to function as a coalition of citizens and organizations fighting for human rights for all Florida’s citizens, especially the marginalized.
Christian Nationalism is a dangerous ideology mixing right wing politics and conservative Christian fundamentalism.
Christian Nationalism is an existential threat to our democracy and human rights for all and especially people of color.
It proposes that the superior, privileged white “race” rules over and against others. They fear that they will be in the minority of the US population by the middle of this century. This is why scores of states with Republican legislatures are passing voter suppression laws while limiting what history teachers can teach beyond white only subjects.
This is why Christian Nationalist office holders and millions of their voters are passing laws that suppress the legal, human, and democratic rights of minorities. This is evident by the wins of ultra-conservatives and 2020 election deniers during this primary season.
Christian Nationalists are urging that local governments, school boards, secretaries of state (who control electoral policies) and governors be elected to dominate their agenda, even if it means eroding our democracy.
Christian Nationalists wrongly believe that our nation was founded as a Christian nation, as they ignore the First Amendment of separation of church and state.
Christian Nationalists interpret the US Constitution from the “originalist” perspective that the Constitution should be applied in the way it was originally drafted when it was signed in 1787. This was the time when most of the Constitutional Assembly delegates of the powerful southern states were slave holders, and men of means were the few electors. Even current jurists' like Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito believes that the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments and the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights acts should be rescinded because they were not included in the original document. This is why the seven conservative justices on the Supreme Court voted to rescind Row v Wade because women’s choice wasn’t in the Constitution of 1787.
The only weapon we have to confront Christian Nationalism is to exercise our VOTE.
The National NAACP urges us to - VOTE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT, because it Does. Urge others to register to vote and to VOTE. Take them to the POLLS!!!
Report of the Religious Affairs Committee – Executive Committee Meeting, NAACP Lakeland Branch, May 12, 2022
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he drew from the English Enlightenment philosophers, John Locke and David Hume. They believed in a philosophy that human beings were created with by nature as created by God (Genesis 1-2). God made them that way, regardless what the religions of the time and prejudices had to say.
These were radical ideas in the time when all the countries in Europe and most of the world, were ruled divine-right kings and queens with no legislative representation by the people.
Jefferson, Washington, Madison, and other southern founders owned slaves and wrote that eventually the institution would cease, because it was in God’s nature that even slaves were meant to be free.
They were troubled by their hypocrisy ignoring the tenants of Hume and Locke. Yet, their genius laid the groundwork for the Constitution which allowed for amendments that with changing circumstances warranted the inventible march towards greater freedoms of a wider and more diverse representation of the American people.
When the founders realized that the Constitution had left out safeguards for the protection of citizens’ basic freedoms, the first 10 amendments, the “Bill of Rights” were the first to be added to this sacred document.
Enslaved Americans were never mentioned in the document, nor were there any freedoms guaranteed to them. It would take a great Civil War waged over 80 years later that would give the enslaved the opportunity for their long march towards freedom.
So let’s refresh our memories as to what the second paragraph of the Declaration says:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
When the second paragraph of the Declaration is broken down and understood in modern English, here are some reflections of what it means to current Americans.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,”
Jefferson draws his poetic phrases of “Natural Law” from Locke and Hume. God created humanity by God’s nature. No further words are necessary, not from any religion controlled by a ruler or church defining what people must believe. No one could pontificate who was human or not human, saved or unsaved, right or wrong.
Most of the Founders were Deists, God believers. God built the clock, swung the pendulum, then walked away to “let nature takes its course.” They feared that state sponsored religion in Europe would infect the new republic with authoritarianism. For centuries religion in the old countries was corrupt, abusing, and counter to core of the Christian faith. Therefore, they didn’t want any particular religion interfering in the freedom of faiths people chose in America – thus the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
“they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Our creation by God is a given. “Unalienable” means that these rights can’t be taken from us because they have been given to us by God.
“That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
These rights are secured with the consent of the governed, that is with the exercise of a democracy in which all persons have access to that power.
“That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends of “unalienable rights” and how these rights are implemented in a democratic government, the people have the right to change or abolish that corrupt government. The people have the right to re-institute a new government restoring the exercise of their unalienable rights.
In other words, Governor DeSantis and his lap-dog legislature has forced upon Florida citizens a series of laws that break that bond and threaten our unalienable rights, while eroding our democracy. It is also occurring in other conservatively dominated states, passing similar laws.
We have a right to abolish DeSantis’ form of government with the only tools we have, the courts and the ballot. Only then can we “institute a new government, laying the foundation on such “self-evident” principles and re-establish our unalienable rights. The people have the right to push the default button, to recover a form of government based on their unalienable rights.
Why the Right-Wing is Winning the Culture Wards and the Erosion of Democracy
The United States Supreme Court is stacked with five conservative justices. How did this happen? The conservative agenda will dominate the legal landscape for decades to come. This issue is much more dire than most American can imagine.
The imminent overturning of Roe v Wade was a process long in coming. It has been a marathon race lasting for over 50 years, with many runners, claiming victory for their cause, who are now poised to cross the finish line. And they have had a lot of help along the way.
There are two titanic movements that have come together to overthrow Roe v Wade after it was ruled in 1973.
The Federalist Society
Conservative lawyers and judges founded the Federalist Society shortly after the Roe Supreme Court ruling. They believed that the US justice system was dominated by too many liberals. They recruited, groomed, and trained young law students, lawyers and judges. They lobbied the White House to appoint and for the Congress to confirm them to federal benches.
Conservative presidents and majority conservative sessions of the Congress filled the benches with conservative judges. Donald Trump holds the record of appointing and the Congress confirming more conservative judges in the past four years, including replacing 3 justices to the Supreme Court.
Presently, five of the sitting Justices, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett, are members of the Federalist Society. Which means that we will have to live with ultra-conservative rulings that will often contradict the will of the people. For example, polls over the years indicate that 53-56% Americans approve of some form of abortion and the right of the woman to choose.
In addition, the Federalist Society promotes the “originalist” interpretation of Constitution. It means that rulings must follow the “original” interpretation of what the founders intended when they ratified the document in 1788.
If the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights make no mention of slavery, then if we were to apply the originalist interpretation does that mean that slavery could return and that women would lose their write to vote? Would the number of electors be reduced to land owning, white males? What about the post Civil War amendments that gave former slaves their freedom, humanity, citizenship and right to vote?
Religion is weaponized by politics – The powerful few decrease the democracy of the many
The other titanic movement happened when religion was weaponized by right-wing politics. Conservative Christians wanting to gain power with politics mustered the “silent majority” of conservative Christians. Traditionally this demographic avoided politics, living with the “bubble” of their churches.
The Reverend Jerry Falwell, saw the opportunity after Roe to focus on the “right to life” sentiment of most conservative Christians.
Falwell and other conservative religious leaders used Roe as a rallying cry in order to gather votes for conservative politicians.
Roe has become the catalyst, not the issue for conservatives to win primaries, and government office in order to promote their anti-democratic power, as Roe and other culture issues are attracting voters to the polls.
The tragedy is that when religion and politics mix, the unalienable rights of the people are eroded, when the people vote for politicians who pass laws that go counter to their unalienable rights.
Five decades ago, striking sugar workers at Talisman Sugar Company, 20 miles south of Belle Glade, Florida asked for volunteers to stand with them in their nonviolent struggle against abuse and oppression. Among those responding to their call was a young Jewish woman, Nan Freeman, 18 and a student at New College of Florida in Sarasota.
Already a veteran student activist, Nan stood near the plant gate at 3:15 a.m. on January 25, 1972, trying to leaflet and talk with strikebraking truck drivers. A double trailer truck carrying 70,000 pounds of sugar cane sped through, knocking her into a guard rail and crushing her to death.
Nan became the first of five United Farm Workers martyrs, one woman and four men killed during strikes. "To some [Nan Freeman] is a young girl who lost her life in a tragic accident," Cesar Chavez said. "To us she is a sister who picketed with farm workers in the middle of the night because of her love for justice. She is a young woman who fulfilled the commandments by loving her neighbors even to the point of sacrificing her own live."
The photograh a mural by artist Danielle Dygert at New College depicts Nan Freeman with two farm workers in the cane fields. "It commemorates Nan's student activism, and ensures her sacrifice is not forgotten."
From a bulletin celebrating the memory of Nan Freeman and the four other martyrs New College, Sarasota FL, April 2, 2022.
Some reflections over the reasons why the iconic novel by Khaled Hosseini, the "Kite Runner” must remain on school library shelves. I read it years ago and consider it one of my all time favorites. That it would be placed on a pull from school library shelves mystifies me. The message I got from this semi-biographical story is of a boy engaged in one of Afghanistan’s favorite sport/pastimes. It evolves into a journey through war, loss of family, and country, to gain freedoms in a new country.
So why the fuss from a few who are disconnected who are pursuing their own narrow agenda, while wrapping themselves with the “grand old flag?
Earlier this week, i was in El Paso TX recording resume applications for five former Afghan army men with a translator, an Afghan, US Army reservist working in Afghan resettlement.
I turned aside to one of the men, who had a better command of English. I asked him, “Where are you from?” He responded, “I am from Kabul.” Then I asked, “Do you know, what is perhaps the most read Afghan novel, “the Kite Runner?” He said, “Yes I do, by Khaled Hosseini?” “Yes,” I said.”
Then I said, “When you were a boy, were you a “kite runner too?” He said, “Yes, I was.” “Did you win?” I asked. He said, “Sometimes.”
What is surreal for me is to read this increadible novel of life in Kabul over a period of 30 years involving three wars, with several evacuations from Kabul, and then meet a man who remembers fondly of his youth and childhood flying these flemsy paper and stick craft. And then, as a soldier having to flee for his life, arriving in the US to begin to resettle, and hopefully to be fully integrated into this land of immigrants, like the boy in the novel.
Why can’t local students be given the “freedome to choose” to read this novel and be inspired by the struggle of loss of childhood, family, freedom with the fight to regain these precious gifts in a new country?
Yes, we are. After spending a week in San Jose and San Francisco during our annual pilgrimage to the middle school where one of Corry's cellos is played by students and to visit Corry's alma mager, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, we returned to Las Cruces NM for another week hanging out with Afghan friends.
We witnessed a lot of progress with these proud and resrouceful folk.
1. The main agenda for the Afghans is finding work. Work brings confidence, a powerful antidote to despair and depression
2. Money is successfully arriving to their families in Afghanistan, along with phone visits, thanks to WhatsAp. There is no way, for now, for the Afghans to get their families out of Afghanistan to reunite with them.
3. Permanent homes have been found for small groups of men and families
4. The children are thriving in school. Today, we were at the El Calvario UMC over lunch. The chef we met last time in Dec/Jan is now cooking for the Afghans. We sampled his fare, a large plate sized turnover bread stuffed with mashed potatoes and spices. Itwas delicious. His wife prepared to flour. Their girls were trying out with us their first English sentences
5. A number of the men have flown the coop to Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas, seeking better jobs and opportunities. Other have been united with relatives and friends
6. El Calvario UMC has assumed fifty more Afghans, with total number at around 125.
7. And the sheltering program of Asylum Seekers from the border continues. One hundred are being processed as we speak, spending the night at the church, then moving on to famiies and communities across the country. The beat goes on.
This is what we have done in the past 3 days:
1. We created a jobs directory for the case managers and volunteers to business owners to promote jobs for Afghans. Each case managers is assigned a number of "clients" to respond to their needs, as a one stop shop prividor.
2. Some non-English job seekers met with a jobs counselor at the NM Workforce Connection
3. We interviewed six Afghans to create their resumes
4. Trudy spoke with a hotel manager who agreed to meet with two potential workers. The next day, we took the men to the hotel and the manager hired them on the spot
5. We drove to a number of businesses and handed out flyers telling of the Afghan's need for job. The reception was very positive, especcially from the hotels and the restaurans. It seems that like in the rest of the country, Las Cruces businesses are having difficulty finding workers.
6. The response to taking English lessons for the adults is spotty. The they would rather work now than learn English, to send money home. Many business will hire non-English speakers in menial labor at the minimum wage in NM at $11.50/hr.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we drive to El Paso TX to meet with an English speaking Afghan who will translate for us as we gather resume information from five Afghans.
On Monday, I will drive 15 Afghans to Mano a Mano (Hand to Hand) day labor pick up. Mano a Mano is operated by the city of Las Cruces and puts people to work cleaning city parks, painting and general maintenance of city properties at $60 per day.
All those whom we met the last time, the families that we took to the parks, the translators, recognized us, but greeted us with us, as close friends, which they are.
That last time, we worked during Christmas week, while we helped give staff a very well deserved break. We were pretty much alone with our van driving rounds, while meeting a very few of the staff. This time we have interacted with most of the case managers who have given us tasks to do. These are very hard working - underpayed, sacrificial humanitarians of the highest degree.
Here is a sobering stat. Currently and rising there are over 80 million internal and international displaced persons on the globe of all catergories. About half are children. And as we all know, over 2M Ukrainians have fled their country and the numbers continue rise. Yes, half of these are children.
In order to understand current events, history teaches us that we must know and understand the causes that have brought us to this terrible situation we are living with today, i.e., the southern border immigration crisis.
The civil war in El Salvador ignited in 1979-- a decades long-standing conflict between the seven feudal families that controlled the country for centuries and a rag tag group of rebels the FMLN (Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional) the Farabundo Marti for National Liberation.
Farabundo Marti was a rebel leader that raised a peasant army in the 1930's in a futile attempt to gain land from the seven families. It was brutally put down. Little changed among the majority poor in the country when a new uprising erupted anew over 40 years later.
In 1980 Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot through the heart as he lifted the host during the eucharist at the Carmelite convent in San Salvador. The assassin was in the employ of the seven families. Romero had openly accused the powerful of their human rights abuses and their impunity. In that same year, four American Catholic missionaries were raped and murdered by Salvadoran soldiers when their van was ambushed on the road between the airport and the capital city of San Salvador (Saint Savior).
The United States was already supporting the corrupt government and army funded by the seven families. Our government imposed its policy of "containing communism" and declared that the FMLN was communist and therefore a threat to the status quo in the region and US security. This policy was being prosecuted concurrently in the neighboring countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala as well. In all instances, the US supplied right wing military dictatorships with funds, advisors, and weapons. The Reagan administration launched the “Reagan Doctrine” against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua by creating and funding a Contra insurgent group (Contra – Against the Sandinistas). So determined was the Reagan administration to overthrow the Sandinistas it became embroiled in the so called Iran/Contra Scandal (selling rockets to Iran to fund the contras.
In 1985 I made my first of five visits to El Salvador, witnessing the impact of the war on the urban and rural poor, as they were violently denied their human rights. At the end of the conflict, over 40k civilians were killed, many from torture and rape, mostly by the government soldiers and the death squads.
During one visit, I met Maria Cristina Gomez, a women's rights promoter, labor leader, elementary school teacher - a Baptist Christian with the NGO I worked with. Later, I received the news that she was dragged from her classroom by heavily armed men in civilian clothes, witnessed by her horrified students. The next day, her body was found on a trash heap.
The war produced over 2 million internal refugees, while thousands fled the country, many taking the same route by land as those arriving at the US border today.
Many Salvadoran youths found their way to Los Angeles and other cities, fleeing the military draft and the violence, not unlike similar motivations for fleeing today. It wasn't too long before they joined street gangs or created their own such as the “Salvatruchas,” and others.
The immigration authorities rounded up and deported a number of them back to El Salvador as well as to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
Since there were no options for education and employment these same young men reorganized their gangs in their home countries.
My last visit to El Salvador was in 2003 I was hosted by missionary friends. They took me to a new low-income housing project that their NGO was helping to finance. But there was a problem. My friends explained as we walked through the neighborhood. Gangs were invading this neighborhood as well. Young toughs would knock on doors and leave threatening notes that unless the residents paid protection money they would be violently attacked or their children would be taken away from them. The boys would be forced into the gang and the girls would be sold into sex trafficking. Sometimes gangs would take over residences, leaving families in the street.
I met a “campesino” (farmer) who taught me how to plant beans on the side of a hill, using an age old method. He handed me a long stick pointed at one end and put some beans in my hand. He said, “dig a small hole with the stick, then drop three beans in the hole, then push the dirt over the hole with your foot.” Then he said, “I’ve tried to get into your country three times, and failed. Here I am barely living.
A similar situation exists today, perhaps worse. The poor can’t find work. They are landless and depend on peonage farming. They are threatened with violence, especially to their children from the gangs and the drug cartels. El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua are failed states, their governments embroiled in corruption. The gangs and the cartels have become the de-facto rulers of these countries. Immigrants are so desperate that they are willing to trek over 1,000 miles, facing corrupt “coyotes,” guides who abandon them on the road, taking their money, and gang violence. They arrive at the border believing that they will be safer their, willingly turning themselves to the US Border Patrol.
A few of the lucky ones are designated as Asylum Seekers and allowed to cross the border into the US. They are given a court date when a judge will determine whether their claim of violence if returned to their home country is legitimate. Then a local agency such as a church or community will shelter, feed, clothe, them and arrange passage to their families or hosts while waiting for their court date. The judge’s ruling can go either way – stay or return. El Calvario United Methodist Church (www.resiliency.org) in Las Cruces NM is one of many shelters along the border receiving Asylum Seekers. I recently served as a volunteer there and will return in March.
Making sense out of this scenario won’t happen until Congress passes a comprehensive immigration law, which is predictable and functional. The chances of this happening are slim at moment until Congress regains its sanity and returns to working across the aisle.
I am pausing for now, but will continue after we return home today. But in the meantime, soak in the awesome beauty of the White Sands of New Mexico, an incredible geological and rare phenomenon.
