Making Things Right
“I was glad to know there were organizations out there fighting on behalf of people who are incarcerated. When I got out, I spoke with Mark Rice with the organization about my interest in volunteering with them. I volunteered for seven months. An opening came up, and I was hired for it. I later started working with voter engagement to wake up the voices in our community. I once heard a slogan from someone and began reciting it during the voting engagement. It said, ‘If your vote didn’t make a difference, they wouldn’t try to take it from you.’ Once we completed that, we turned our attention to the Unlock the Vote campaign, which we’re using to challenge the state to give back voting rights to people being released from prison. Your right to vote is a right given to you because you’re a citizen. Being convicted of a crime never had anything to do with citizenship.” As the lead organizer, Jackson is pushing the organization toward increasing the assistance and services that provide educational tools for promoting awareness around voter engagement and reentry. “Right now, my main focus is on building EXPO and its membership to inform the community. We’re still finding out there are people who don’t know help is here. I’m working to connect networks that go through all spectrums of reentry. We want the community to understand what we’re doing here and let those who are or were incarcerated know they have a voice, even though they just got out of prison. It’s time they start using that voice.”
While he was incarcerated, Jackson filed a total of five lawsuits against the Department of Corrections and won two of them. His efforts for justice have encouraged his work with EXPO. “I knew this was an organization fighting for things I believe in. It let me know I wasn’t by myself. While I was in prison, I was searching for places that assisted with what I knew was going on behind those walls. I was never able to find a lawyer in this state who would represent inmates against the DOC. So I was excited when I found an organization that’s fighting for those individuals, and I wanted to be a part of that. Uniting with other people who did
time and seeing they’re like-minded was all I needed to get going. From there, it was full steam ahead.”
“We’re still finding out there are people who don’t know help is here.”
- Sylvester Jackson
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