Two topics have emerged recently that I have had a personal stake in.
The first is a continuing debate about whether voting rights should be returned to convicted felons after they have served their sentence.
The second is whether our state can afford to ignominy of remaining as one of the three states that observe Confederate Memorial Day as a state holiday.
That “holiday” came and went Monday, with little to no fanfare, although state and county workers enjoyed the day off, I’m sure.
As almost everyone knows by now, I was convicted of Felony DUI in 2007 when I lived in Arizona. After serving my time in state prison, attending mandatory classes and paying $3,000 in fines, the state of Arizona restored my voting rights.
That’s how is works in the majority states, of course.
Mississippi, though is one of 14 states that do not automatically restore rights for some felons. A handful of felons succeed in getting their voting rights back through the Mississippi Legislature, but for most felons, a conviction means a lifetime of disenfranchisement.
According to an organization called The Sentencing Project,” 218,000 Mississippians with felony convictions no longer have voting rights. With 1.8 million registered voters, that means 12 percent of the voting age population is denied that right.
Anyone with a sense of fairness should be able to agree that when a person pays his/her debt to society, they have every right to vote. Can anyone seriously argue otherwise? These people work, pay taxes and should be able to have a say in our government.
As for Confederate Memorial Day, there is no reason why anyone of good conscience should insist on such a holiday.
Again, I have a personal connection. My 4x grandfather, Enoch James Dunnam, was the first of what is now nine generations of my family to live in Mississippi. On Sept. 24, 1864, he died fighting for the Confederacy at Lovejoy Station during the Battle for Atlanta. He was 37-years-old when he died. He left behind a widow and three children.
Despite that family connection, I’ve never felt a sense of pride in his service. To me, it was an awful waste of life for an awful cause. It seems far better to me to live a life that redeems my family history rather than glorifies it. That means living peaceably with those of different races, faiths, backgrounds and ideas. It means empathy, understanding, fairness.
If we really want to prove we are not the people of that regrettable era, we’ll restore voting rights to those who have paid for their wrongs, encourage every eligible Mississippian to register and vote and facilitate every means that would ensure high turnouts.
Here’s where to connect the dots on these two issues:
Let’s replace Confederate Memorial Day in April with Election Day in November as a state holiday.
That would be a good exchange, don’t you think?
What would we lose in that exchange, other than the wretched residue of a racist past?
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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