Even while he was caught up in street life on the South Side of Chicago, Aaron Smith knew he had a civic duty. The college graduate was misusing his business education to hustle heroin, but come election time, he would be filling out his ballot from top to bottom. “Local governments are really what’s going […]
voting rights
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Natural Disasters Create Voting Crises
Voting has often been inconvenient for residents of Florida’s Dunbar community. For decades, they fought to get an early-voting site in their Gulf Coast neighborhood. It finally came to fruition ahead of the 2020 election, but now, just two years later, that polling site has shut down. The story is similar for many in this […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Incarceration
The Push to Expand Voting Access for Incarcerated People
Colie Levar Long was just 18 years old when he committed one of the most “horrendous” crimes. At an age when many are preparing to start their lives, Long was starting a life sentence for the murder of a 14-year-old boy. He grew up in Washington, D.C., when many residents were in “survival mode,” he […]
