In your Rosa Parks editorial, you write, “The challenges in race relations have changed in many ways, but there has been no change in the need for us to find strength inside ourselves to take a stand with like minded people and carry forward the work we believe in.”
To show how little has changed: at the present time, 14 states bar felons from voting for life. A synonym for “felon” is “villain” or “villein”: an unfree peasant standing as the slave of a feudal lord but free in relations with respect to all others.” The Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, section 9, reads in part: “No Title of Nobility.”
Maine and Vermont allow felons to vote. Massachusetts and Utah used to allow felons to vote. The U.S. Constitution, Article IV, section 2, reads, “The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”
Amendment XIV, in part: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Amendment XV, in part: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Joseph J. Kuciejczyk
St. Louis