Virtual Forum w/ Dorsey Nunn: Prop 17: Getting Souls to the Polls

Submitted by the Event Organizer

“It is a Christian obligation to vote, and more than that, it is the church’s responsibility to help get souls to the polls.”— Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, The Episcopal Church

The United States locks up more people per capita than any other nation, at the staggering rate of 698 per 100,000 residents. And the poor and people of color are dramatically overrepresented in our nation’s prisons and jails. Once released from prison, former prisoners are punished again, discriminated against in housing, employment and in voting. Something needs to change.

Proposition 17, on the November ballot, would amend the California constitution to restore the right to vote to convicted felons who are released on parole from state or federal prison. Under current law such persons are not eligible to vote until the terms of their parole are completed. Can even narrow policy changes, like this one, meaningfully reduce our society’s use of incarceration? And what else can we do?

Join us to hear from Dorsey Nunn, Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, co-founder of All of Us or None, in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young about Prop. 17, amending the 13th Amendment and the movement to win full restoration of human and civil rights for formerly and currently incarcerated people.

Space is limited. The Forum will also be broadcast on Facebook, and posted on our Youtube channel for viewing following the livestream.

About the guest

Dorsey Nunn is the Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and is a leading expert with over 40 years of professional experience in criminal justice reform. He is the first formerly incarcerated director of a public interest law office in California. Dorsey was sentenced to life in the California Department of Corrections when he was 19 years old. He was paroled in 1981 and discharged from parole in 1984. Under his leadership LSPC has made significant advances including the development of the Elder Freeman Policy Fellowship, legal victories including the Ashker lawsuit that ended long term solitary confinement in California, and policy victories including numerous Ban the Box laws passed at the local, state, and federal levels, the end of shackling of pregnant women, and the biggest drug sentencing reform passed by the CA legislature in recent history (SB 180). Dorsey’s leadership has helped to establish several local and national institutions and movement building projects including All of Us or None, Free at Last, Critical Resistance, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People and Families Movement. His commitment to anti-racist organizing is international. He has visited numerous international prisons including prisons in El Salvador, New Zealand, and South Africa. Dorsey has received federal and local recognition including the White House Champion of Change Award signed by President Obama and he is the recipient of numerous awards including the Chief Justice Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU of Northern California and the Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship from the University of Michigan. Dorsey has been instrumental in changing the national narrative around formerly incarcerated people and centering people with conviction histories as experts in the field of criminal justice reform. Michelle Alexander wrote about Dorsey and his work with all of Us or None in her best-selling book, The New Jim Crow.  He is a frequently requested speaker at conferences, universities, and in documentaries including Ava DuVernay’s 13th. Since Dorsey was released from prison he has focused on reunifying, restoring, and healing his family.

About the host

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.

About The Forum

The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host, Malcolm Clemens Young, the dean of Grace Cathedral, and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.