Brennan Center releases "Jim Crow in New York," a report on disenfranchisement

On March 2, a rich mix of more than 200 people—lawyers, church and community leaders and members, civil rights workers and others—came to a Brennan Center for Justice-sponsored panel discussion at the Schomberg Center for Black Culture in Harlem.
 
Reverend Dr. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church joined NAACP NY Conference President Hazel Dukes, former NAACP LDF chief Ted Shaw, and Glenn Martin of the Fortune Society—moderated by Brennan Center counsel Erika Wood—for a lively conversation about New York voting laws. 
 
The event coincided with release of the Brennan Center's report on Jim Crow in New York. The study's authors conclude that there is a historical link between Reconstruction-Era laws specifically intended to keep blacks out of the voting process and today's felony disenfranchisement laws. Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree wrote the introduction and called the report "remarkable."

Posted March 12, 2010