FLORIDA RIGHTS RESTORATION COALITION TO COMMEMORATE JUNETEENTH WITH STATEWIDE EVENTS

Group Launches Rights Restoration Assistance Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

CONTACT:
Muslima Lewis, Racial Justice Project Director; or Brandon Hensler, Director of Communications, both at: (786) 363-2700

MIAMI – The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) today announced that it will host “Juneteenth” events throughout Florida to launch its expanded rights restoration assistance program under the new rules of Executive Clemency. The events will generate awareness about the new rules and continue the process of restoring rights to hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised Floridians. Events will be held in 14 Florida communities, including: Belle Glade, Dania Beach, Daytona, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Walton Beach, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Palm Bay, Panama City, Pensacola, St. Petersburg and Sarasota. For specific event locations, visit www.restorerights.org or www.aclufl.org.

While most of the 950,000 ex-offenders in Florida are white, African-Americans are disenfranchised at dramatic rates. The notification requirement under the new Rules of Executive Clemency may result in many ex-offenders not learning that their rights have been restored. This is reminiscent of the events in 1865 that we commemorate on June 19, or Juneteenth, every year. On June 19, 1865, slaves in Galveston, Texas, first learned of their freedom from slavery through the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation 2 ½ years earlier. Juneteenth is now a national African-American independence celebration.

“The FRRC Juneteenth events throughout Florida highlight the leadership role that the FRRC member organizations continue to play in advocating for the eradication of Florida’s civil rights ban,” said Muslima Lewis, Senior Attorney and Racial Justice Project Director, ACLU of Florida, a founding member of the FRRC. “With these events, the ACLU of Florida and other FRRC organizations rededicate ourselves to advocating for a truly automatic civil rights restoration process in Florida.”

Nearly one in five African American adults in Florida is ineligible to vote, hold public office or obtain any one of several dozen state-issued occupational licenses. Although the new rules are an important first step in reforming Florida’s clemency process the rules fall short of creating an automatic, paperwork-free rights restoration process. The rules rely on the Office of Executive Clemency having current contact information for the hundreds of thousands of ex-offenders who have been living and working the community for decades.

“As a member of the FRRC, the NAACP Florida State Conference has mobilized our branches throughout the state to provide rights restoration education and assistance,” said Beverlye Neal, Executive Director of the NAACP Florida State Conference. “The new rules, while an important first step in clemency reform, still require us to work tirelessly on this critical civil rights issue.”

While the FRRC advocates for a constitutional amendment that removes this ban on civil rights (including voting rights) from the Florida constitution, the coalition continues to provide free rights restoration assistance throughout the state.

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is a coalition of over 40 national, state and local organizations dedicated to eradicating Florida’s Reconstruction era civil rights ban. FRRC member organizations host Restoration of Civil Rights (RCR) workshops, lobby the Clemency Board and the legislature for RCR reform, and create public awareness of the unfair ban on civil rights, including voting rights, in Florida. For additional information, visit our Web site at: www.restorerights.org.

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