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Inside Story ·

Americans With Past Convictions Fight to Regain Right to Vote

A Tennessee woman tries to regain her right to vote after a conviction, and entrepreneur Topeka Sam talks about what she learned while in prison.

We examine how past criminal convictions bar many Americans from voting in Tennessee, one of the hardest states to regain the right to vote after serving time behind bars.

Host Lawrence Bartley sits down with Topeka Sam, a formerly incarcerated entrepreneur who works to support people who are released from prison, about her journey, lessons she’s learned and her efforts to build financial literacy in the community.

In an animated essay, Ravi Shankar explains why nothing has made him feel more American than going to jail.

And finally, voting doesn’t just occur in the free world, as Bartley explains in his closing message, recalling a time when he ran his own campaign on the inside to serve on a committee charged with improving conditions in the prison where he was incarcerated.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Simone Perez, Alexis Johnson, Nicole Lewis, Devin Greenleaf, Raghuram Vadarevu, Rochelle Widdowson, Ravi Shankar, Akiba Solomon, Grace Shin

Lawrence Bartley Twitter Email is the publisher of The Marshall Project Inside, the organization’s publications intended specifically for incarcerated audiences. He is an accomplished public speaker and has provided multimedia content for CNN, PBS, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC and more. News Inside is the recipient of the 2020 Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.

Donald Washington, Jr. Email is the director and executive producer of Inside Story, a video series designed to reach audiences both inside and outside of prison walls. He is a self-taught filmmaker who honed his skills working with local Brooklyn artists and grassroots organizations. Donald holds a graduate degree from the New York Theological Seminary and a Bachelor of Science degree from Mercy College. Previously, Donald was the co-founding president of the Back-To-School Fund, a fundraising group supplementing the educational needs of children with incarcerated parents in New York State prisons. In 2015, he was presented with the Ossie Davis Award for his excellence in community service by Hudson Link for Higher Education.