Meet five inspiring college students making a better South by taking on big issues, from banned books to complicated tax laws to voter disenfranchisement. With help from the E Pluribus Unum Institute, their self-starter projects have made major changes in their community.
Words By Ariel Felton | Illustrations by Abigail Giuseppe
August 3, 2023
For most Americans, voting just takes a stroll or a quick drive to the polling place — maybe a short wait in line. But for people convicted of felonies, the path is far trickier.
During her junior year at the University of Alabama, Maddie Minkoff got a crash course in felony disenfranchisement through her work with Return My Vote, a nonprofit providing free voting rights restoration to every Alabama citizen who lost theirs because of a felony-level conviction.
“I’ve always known felony disenfranchisement was something I don’t agree with,” said Minkoff, who originally hails from McDonough, Georgia. “It’s so punitive that, after people have been rehabilitated, which is the stated goal of our justice system, they’re still being punished by being denied the right to vote. The scope of the problem, though, is something that was relatively new to me.”
Many people mistakenly believe that once a person is convicted of a felony, they lose their right to vote permanently. But differing state laws make the truth much more blurry. In Louisiana, for example, prisoners can’t vote, whether serving time for a felony or a misdemeanor. In Georgia, Texas, and Arkansas, however, people with felony convictions can vote after they’ve completed their sentence and paid certain fines.
Minkoff studies in a state with a particularly unclear law. Since 1901, the Alabama Constitution has disqualified anyone convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” from voting.
“The catch is, they never defined moral turpitude,” said Minkoff. “It’s 1901, and there's an intent to reinstill white supremacy after the Civil War. One of the ways that they chose to do this was to suppress the Black vote in Alabama. You can imagine how this law played out — basically, if you are Black in public, you can be convicted of a crime of moral turpitude and now you can no longer vote.”
For more than a century, the law’s intentionally vague wording remained. By 2017, according to the nonpartisan government watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, over 250,000 Alabama citizens could not vote because of a prior conviction. With moral turpitude left undefined, widespread inconsistencies spread across Alabama regarding what crimes took away the right to vote.
“It was basically up to individual voting registrars in individual counties in Alabama,” explained Minkoff. “So if I committed a crime, say burglary, in Tuscaloosa County, I maybe wouldn't be able to register to vote. But if I have that same record, and I'm in Jefferson County, maybe I could. It caused enough confusion that some people weren’t even trying to vote.”
In 2017, with a federal lawsuit looming, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed HB282, a law that named fewer than 50 specific felony offenses that could lead to voter disenfranchisement and also outlined the process for restoration of the right to vote.
Two offenses lead to permanent disenfranchisement: treason and impeachment. Eleven offenses, including sexual abuse and murder, require a pardon to restore voting rights; 26 offenses require only that citizens complete their prison sentences and pay all outstanding fines and fees before being allowed to vote again. But most importantly missing from the new list is drug possession, which accounted for thousands of disenfranchised citizens.
Suddenly, thousands of people were now eligible to have their voting rights restored; however, the state has made little to no effort to educate formerly convicted felons about this news. In fact, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said he wouldn’t spend taxpayer dollars on the effort.
Before she moved to Alabama, Minkoff had originally devised a plan to create a Georgia-based website where people convicted of felonies could look up information about the voting restoration process; ultimately, she wanted to spread that database throughout the South. There was one problem: She quickly realized that Georgia didn’t have a centralized database of citizens convicted of felonies. But Alabama did.
In October 2022, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the fiscal sponsor of Return My Vote, won a lawsuit compelling the state of Alabama to turn over records related to people denied the right to vote because of felony convictions. Now armed with a list of more than 20,000 Alabama citizens, Minkoff reformulated her proposal, a mail campaign targeting this list of could-be voters.
In addition to explaining the change in Alabama’s disenfranchisement laws, the mailer also directs people to Return My Vote for help getting their rights restored. Minkoff, who says she didn’t want to center herself in this project, was grateful that EPU allowed her to partner with organizations like Greater Birmingham Ministries and Return My Vote, both of which have been historically engaged in this work.
“The fellowship has been so encouraging, and downright insist that we are partnering with local organizations and paying attention to the work that's already being done by stakeholders in our area, and how we can incorporate them to uplift local movements,” said Minkoff. “My mailers have GBM and Return My Vote logos on them.”
For Minkoff, the project comes down to dispelling myths both big and small. Something as small as a piece of paper in the mail could restore massive power to the people who had earned it.
“It's very important that people — and especially people in the South, where incarceration is so high and so very clearly along racial lines — understand that you still have access to your democracy,” said Minkoff. “More importantly, I want people to understand that as much as there are actors trying to sway you from accessing that democracy, there is also a whole world of people who want nothing more than to connect you with that democracy.”
Drive across Mississippi and turn the radio dial and chances are you’ll hear an ad for the Mississippi Taxpayer Assistance Project at North Mississippi Rural Legal Services. A government agency or nonprofit didn’t create it; college student Clark Etzel did. While most students his age have only just started to think about taxes — if they have at all — Etzel has made it his mission to increase awareness of tax credits and tax assistance resources for everyone in Lafayette County.
“Making sure people have agency and access to resources seems to be a fairly straightforward way of improving equity in the South,” said Etzel, a junior at the University of Mississippi studying public policy leadership. “About one in five people are missing thousands of dollars in tax benefits. Tax laws are so complex, and even worse than not claiming money is when mistakes are made.”
Before bringing his idea to EPU, Etzel came across a study from ProPublica that showed the Mississippi Delta, one of the nation’s poorest regions, also had one of the highest rates of IRS income tax audits in the country. Additionally, he learned how many people in Mississippi were missing out on tax benefits they qualified for, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, which provides federal financial aid for working-class families.
“Initially, I wanted to hold sessions to talk to people face to face about tax resources and benefits they might be missing,” said Etzel. “My mentors in the Unum Fellowship helped me realize that it would be more of a long-term process to make sure I have a profile in the community. Even if I'm from Oxford, I'm not actively working every day with the communities who need this information the most.”
Etzel is “from” quite a few places — born in Illinois, with stints in Iowa, Ohio, and Arkansas, before landing in Mississippi. When the Unum Fellowship application asked his thoughts on changing the South, he said it was a bit of a challenge finding where he could fit in.
“I kept thinking, am I from the Midwest or from the South?” said Etzel. “It might sound inconsequential, but I was applying for something that's focused on changemaking in this region, and I wondered, where's my space here? Where do I fit and how can I help?”
He found the answer in lifting up the people and organizations in the community already doing the work, such as North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, the only Low Income Taxpayer Clinic in Mississippi offering free legal representation to low-income taxpayers.
To help spread awareness of their services, Etzel researched radio stations in Mississippi that offer public service announcements, then contacted them one by one to ask for 30-second slots. So far, those stations have broadcast the message 330 times over the last month and a half.
“The added benefit of this project has been helping the Mississippi Tax Assistance Project get more support,” Etzel said. “Each time one of those ads plays, they've been getting some kind of donation. So far, we’ve raised about $7,500.”
In the process of developing this project, Etzel found his people: other Southerners working steadily toward change.
“One of the biggest high points of the process was finally establishing contact with someone in the community that had the same goal as I did,” said Etzel. “Now, I have a concrete relationship with MTAP, providing information about tax credits and making more community connections along the way.”
One of the most diverse communities in one of the most diverse cities in the U.S., Alief, Texas, sits on the southwest side of Houston’s city limits. Vietnamese, Chinese, Latinx, and African communities, with residents representing the entire socioeconomic spectrum and speaking more than 60 languages, all call it home.
Locally, it’s known as District F. The F, many say, stands for forgotten.
“Unfortunately, the city has historically economically underfunded and neglected this area,” said Tommy Wan, a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin who grew up in Alief. “It’s sad to see this in such a diverse community, populated with Hispanics, Black Americans, and a lot of young students.”
Wan was only in middle school in 2017 when the carcinogen chromium-6 was found in the water. Residents rallied and protested against the lack of government oversight. But revitalization efforts in Alief, such as the new Alief Neighborhood Center, have taken decades to come to fruition. Historically low voter turnout in Alief only compounds the community’s problems. In the General and Special Elections of Nov. 7, 2017, Precinct 0487 had a voter turnout of 3.27% in electing trustees.
While interning for a Houston City Council member who represents Alief, Wan realized how rarely young people from Alief knew how to be civically involved, let alone the importance of it.
“I got into the realms of civic engagement by connecting with youth organizers,” Wan said. “It really sparked my passion for community organizing, which is a great way for young people to get involved, so that once we're out of high school or college, we stay engaged in those communities and we avoid things like gentrification. Instead, we preserve the history of our neighborhoods, understanding the intricacies and nuances of where we grow up.”
During a discussion with Alief Independent School District officials, Wan learned that the district had insufficient funding to implement any type of civic engagement programming. It was this moment that inspired his project for the Unum Fellowship: AliefVotes, a 501(c)(3) that empowers local youth civic engagement.
In the first semester of the Unum learning sessions, Wan was able to reframe his project through the lens of racial equity by considering which schools within the Alief school district had the most need.
“My original vision for AliefVotes was providing an equal opportunity to all Alief schools, but the educational sessions about racial equity really made me take a step back and understand that some schools are historically rated on a lower level than other schools — and that inequity is very noticeable in Texas,” said Wan. “It made me reconsider what schools I should put more attention to and ask stakeholders to give more attention to.”
The organization’s first project was the AliefVotes Student Ambassador Program, a yearlong intensive program for students to receive civic engagement training, leadership opportunities, and unique nonpartisan government experiences. In 2022, the inaugural year, six students from local high schools participated, attending presentations about the mechanics of the school board and planning civic engagement opportunities for their schools like neighborhood cleanups or tree-planting events.
“One of our fellows organized a Houston Food Bank event, from getting the flyers out there to sending for waivers and contacting stakeholders,” Wan said. “We had about 10 young people who came out and joined us. Afterward, we were all sharing the stories of how we got to Alief and what we love about the community. It was a really heartwarming moment for me seeing people my age come together in that way.”
AliefVotes also held an art and essay contest that spurred students to respond to an artistic prompt about culture and issues in Alief. Throughout the project, Wan says, he learned even more about his community. Most importantly, he’s seen his peers also have the desire to instigate change.
“Young people are eager to organize,” he said. “They're eager to get involved in their communities, but there hasn't been any mechanism to do so. Infrastructure is [one thing] heavy on young people’s minds, whether that’s sidewalk revitalization, or building a new community center so that we have an established library and a place for sports.”
In the future, Wan hopes AliefVotes can host more in-person events and grow the Ambassador program to reach more students.
“The goal is making sure these young people know what the local government does and how they can use that resource to have our voices heard,” said Wan. “We have a wide range of experiences as young people, and it’s very important to translate those experiences into community organizing. Our voices could have a monumental impact.”
This past March, amidst a national wave of anti-critical-race-theory efforts that have turned schools across the country into political battlegrounds, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled House passed a bill that limits racial discussions in the classroom. Specifically, the legislation banned public school teachers from giving lessons that make students feel guilty or responsible for past actions committed by people of their own race or sex. Several books have been banned or restricted in North Carolina schools since, even titles like “All American Boys” by best-selling author Jason Reynolds.
Growing up in Wake Forest, Anamari Thomas-Carter knew firsthand the challenges Black and brown students can face in the city’s public schools, from biased disciplinary practices to a lack of BIPOC representation in the school’s curriculum. But she couldn’t complacently stand by at this latest erasure in her home state.
“When Black and brown children come into institutions that do not serve them in the way that they serve white children, the motivation to succeed is automatically decreased,” she said. “I can’t stress enough the importance of having diverse figures to look up to, not just in our curriculums but in our lives in general.”
Last year, Thomas-Carter signed up to volunteer with Neighbor to Neighbor, a Raleigh-based organization that provides educational mentorship for children in low-income communities. She mentored students one-on-one in language arts as a way to give back to the community that raised her.
While she was in high school, Thomas-Carter dreamed of starting a volunteer organization similar to Neighbor to Neighbor, but after seeing the real-time effects of this latest legislation, she felt compelled to shift her focus to introducing young people to a practical curriculum that taught real-world lessons.
“I was very interested in developing something where professors and volunteers could come in and teach children about everything from economics and money management to healthy family planning and sex education, but I felt I didn't have the funding or knowledge of how to really get something like that started.”
A few years later, as a senior at Wake Technical Community College, she got her chance. A longtime mentor introduced Thomas-Carter to EPU’s fellowship. Combined with her connections at Neighbor to Neighbor, Thomas-Carter says it felt like the final puzzle piece fitting into place. She pitched her idea for a program that introduced children in her community to culturally responsive curriculums where they could learn while also seeing themselves represented throughout historical and modern times.
“My entire goal is to introduce Black and brown figures, and tie it in with their coursework,” she said. “School curriculums, especially those in the South, often don’t focus on the achievements of the BIPOC community. When we talk about food science, why don't we discuss George Washington Carver … and create a science project around that?”
Thomas-Carter developed and distributed comprehensive lesson plans that combined Black history with writing and cooking skills. She’s currently testing the program through Neighbor to Neighbor with a group of six young girls.
“We’re learning about Joseph Lee, who created a bread crumb maker,” said Thomas-Carter. “We're also learning about putting things in sequential order to create a recipe. The next time I see them, they will create their own recipes, and we’ll make cookie dough together.”
With a better grasp on the inner workings of a nonprofit, from community partnerships to research methods along with mentorship, Thomas-Carter knows how to navigate the challenges that come with creating change. She can also see how the small-scale effort she launched has ultimately bridged a huge gap created by forces that might seem unconquerable.
“My mentor, Lee Davis, was very affirmative,” she said. “He reminded me that I'm here for a reason and that no matter what, when I'm with my children, I'm giving them a safe space. At the end of the day, that's what matters.”
In Baton Rouge, only a 15-minute drive separates Louisiana State University from Southern University and A&M College. But when it comes to fresh food options on and around these schools, the two campuses can feel like different worlds.
“South Baton Rouge, where LSU is located, is well-funded and well taken care of — way different from the area around Southern University,” says Ashanta Gleason, a rising senior at SU. “When visiting my friends at LSU, I notice they can walk to huge fresh food markets, whereas we don't have anything like that on our side of Baton Rouge. Things like that make you really angry because it's like, ‘Why can't we have that, too?’”
Southern University and A&M College, the largest historically Black college or university in Louisiana, is located in Scotlandville, a Baton Rouge suburb and at one time the largest majority-Black community in the state. Today city-parish officials consider the area a food desert, meaning residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious food.
“We have a lot of pride in going to Southern University, but it's hard to stay healthy here,” said Gleason. “As students, we can't just ignore the neighborhood that Southern University is in. We need to be a part of addressing these issues.”
Gleason has been involved in the Baton Rouge community since relocating from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. As a student at McKinley Senior High School, she worked with Humanities Amped, an arts-based healing justice organization, which inspired her to start her own community service organization. The Filled With Love Project provides resources for less fortunate communities through clothing and food donation drives. Gleason is also the president of SU’s NAACP chapter, which has recently focused on solving environmental justice issues.
“The specific problem of food access in Scotlandville had been in my head for a few months when a mentor sent me the Unum Fellowship application,” said Gleason. “When I read it was an opportunity to create projects around racial inequity in communities near our college, the first thing that came to my mind was to create a huge community garden in a space that the community could visit to learn about fresh food with no charge.”
As a Unum Fellow, Gleason was awarded $3,000 to bring the community garden to life. Kia Bickham, Director of Engagement for E Pluribus Unum, who is also known for her gardening work around Baton Rouge, mentored Gleason as she began her project and helped her build several key relationships with community partners. Mitchell Provensal and SK Groll from Baton Roots, a community farm that’s part of the Baton Rouge Garden Alliance, met with Gleason in person to suggest crops that would thrive in Louisiana soil and to explain processes around irrigation systems and harvest schedules.
“Kia also connected me with the owners of We Three Kings, a local Rastafarian market that owned an old community garden behind their shop,” said Gleason, who plans to reinvigorate that space with fresh produce. “To create sustainability around the project, Kia and I have been working with Southern University's Service Learning department, a required community service course. I’d like the garden to qualify as a service learning space for students where they can maintain the garden for their required community service hours.”
With the land secured, the next steps included informing the community about the incoming garden and asking for feedback from residents about which vegetables, fruits, or herbs they’d like to see in the garden. This past June, Gleason hosted a garden cleanup and community canvassing event. A group of 23 volunteers cleared trash and weeds from the land, tilled the earth for planting, and distributed the Scotlandville Community Preferences and Environmental Justice survey, reaching 43 community members and Southern University students. Gleason’s next goal is to start a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), with boxes of produce delivered to or picked up by locals free of charge.
When she graduates from Southern University, Gleason is interested in attending Howard University for a master's degree in African Diaspora Studies. But after that, she wants to come back to Baton Rouge to teach civics in one of the local middle or high schools.
“Hopefully,” she said, “I come back to a garden even better than I left it.”
Ariel Felton is a writer and editor residing in Savannah, Georgia. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, Vogue, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Savannah Magazine, and more. Her essay “A Letter to My Niece,” first published in The Progressive, was listed as notable in “Best American Essays 2020.” She is the President of the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home Board of Directors.
Abigail Giuseppe is an illustrator, portrait painter, and pattern designer based in Richmond, Virginia, who loves bright, warm colors and the intersection of history with popular culture. When she isn’t drawing and painting, Abigail can be found in the back corners of antique malls looking for odd plates to add to her collection or ordering her third espresso shot of the day.
