Welcome to Louisiana Lefty, a podcast about politics and community in Louisiana, where we make the case that the health of the state requires a strong progressive movement fueled by the critical work of organizing on the ground. Our goal is to democratize information, demystify party politics, and empower you to join the mission, because victory for Louisiana requires you.
I'm your host Lynda Woolard. This episode is the second of our two part interview with Norris Henderson. Best known as founder and executive director of Voice of the Experienced and Voters Organized to Educate. We continue our conversation on his decades of organizing for criminal justice reform, the patience and persistence required for progressive change, and the formula being used by his organizations to win big victories in our state. If you missed our previous episode, Animated by Justice No. 1 with Norris Henderson, please give it a listen. And then come back to this episode as we pick up where we left off with a deeper dive on the Unanimous Jury Coalition's campaign to change the Louisiana constitution.
My joy is not being a witness, but being a participant. So when I tell the story, it's in the first person: I was there. I was in the middle of that. I wasn't on the sideline watching. And every time I see somebody that was really in the throes of looking at that Yes on 2 placard with everybody's signatures on it, looking at people's signatures, it's like, man. That was a short window that we worked in. And that just demonstrated the commitment that people had to make this happen. First to get the legislation, which was totally out of our hands, to get the legislation, and between June and November, to make it happen, is a miracle in and of itself.
We did a podcast with JP Morell, where he went through the whole process of passing that in the legislature even to get it on the ballot. So that was its own wild story.
That's right. That's right. I mean, people in these states where they do ballot initiatives, they just go get it and go to work. The FIPs in Florida, they had to gather over 700,000 signatures to get it on the ballot. Although that was work, it was the people's will to put it on the ballot. Here, we're at the mercy of the legislature, and two thirds of each body, then two thirds of the whole body, which that don't happen every day in Louisiana, especially a constitutional amendment. To be honest, I don't think people believed we was gonna get it done. I think people thought, "Oh, we're going to give you the opportunity and when it fails, we'll be like, Oh, we tried, we gave y'all the opportunity, y'all were'nt able to make it happen, now go away." And I think we're becoming that thorn in their side right now. Because we're not going away. And we're showing up in every iteration that you can, through legislation, in the courts, and everywhere. And now the task force is really calling people to account, you know, this is that reckoning that we have to have within this state to make this thing right. But this has been a good journey that we've been on. I don't know what the final destination is, but the journey has been really, really, really exciting.
So there is a connection between some of those Jim Crow voting restrictions and Jim Crow jury laws, wherein they're not only denying people their freedom, they're denying them the ability to engage in the process. Can you tell me what passing the unanimous jury amendment really has done for folks?
I think it's going to be the thing that undermines mass incarceration in Louisiana. Because first of all, now you need 12 people, and what people fully understand now is the power that's vested in them. When this happened during the 1890s, there were over 100,000 African American registered voters. The minute they changed the constitution, that literally dwindled down to like 10,000 people. So you've disenfranchised people for over 100 years. So people who have been removed from the franchise don't see a vested interest in it. And so I think in getting that done, it empowers those other people, and it makes everybody play fair. Couple with that fact, this last legislative session, we have restored the right to serve on the jury to formerly incarcerated people. Who more understands that machinery than somebody who's been a part of it? I tell folks all the time, I know more about the elements of crime than any John Q. Citizen that you sit in the jury panel. A lot of these things are determined off emotion, and not off of fact. There's a Latin phrase that from the facts comes the law, not the other way around. That's why you see the Innocence Project exists now, primarily because people go to prison, not because of facts, but because they emotionalize these cases. They're highly charged and people want to get it done with, and bam, you know, somebody is going to prison. 10 years later, here they come back again, because somebody didn't do it right. But no, to me, the non unanimous is going to be the biggest game changer in our criminal justice system. Bar none, bar none. Because it's like, being in 100 yard dash, and you spot somebody 80 yards, you'll never catch them. You know, you'll never catch them, they got a head start. And so going into a jury and explaining to jurors that, "I don't need all of y'all, I just need ten of y'all, and that's going to be sufficient enough." Well, just like the lady said at the hearing, when they got the ten, I became insignificant. So you've actually deprived that person of being a part of the process. And so it is a double edged sword, you've not only victimized the person who was on trial, but you victimize the person who was on the jury, because you nullify their voice, you didn't give them a voice in the process. And the striking thing about, there wasn't but two states in this country that allowed that to happen: Louisiana and Oregon. And as we speak, Oregon is in the process now of changing theirs. They've kind of like accelerated their pace and change, and we're still holding on for dear life, you know, it's like, we just don't want change, and want to make every excuse in the world as to why. The easiest fix is to acknowledge what happened, acknowledged the roots of it, where it came from, and from that we move on.
What's the Justice and Truth Roadmap?
The Justice and Truth Roadmap is actually our proposal asking to look at these 1500 folks in prison, and create a mechanism for them to be treated fairly. To one, give them an option of a new trial, or do like the local D.A. has done and give these folks an opportunity to get out of prison. I mean, how can you? You know, an unjust law is like no law at all. So how can we have on one side saying Evangelisto Ramos, who had a non unamious jury that the Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional, that's unconstitutional for Mr. Ramos, and you have to address this accordingly, but for Mr. Smith over here, I'm sorry, you wasn't in a timely window. That's just not equal protection under the law. That is not the fourteenth amendment that guarantees equal protection, so until we reconcile with that, it's gonna be an ugly stain on us about what happened. And I think this state needs to acknowledge that. Professor (Thomas Aiello) who wrote Jim Crow's Last Stand said that was supposed to be Jim Crow's last stand, non unanimous juries. But as long as somebody is sitting in prison because of non unanimous juries, it still exists. And so the Justice and Truth Roadmap is making those folks whole.
And I know people will say, "Well, what about the crime survivors?" It's like, well, the system didn't pack fair with neither side. Had they had 12 people, this would be a closed case. We wouldn't need to be revisiting this conversation. But because they didn't pack fair, we have to start from scratch, and what starting from scratch looks like is gathering the evidence up. Some of these folks, if they decide to go back to trial, they may get reconvicted again, based upon the facts, based upon the evidence that exists. Some of them won't, like that the case I mentioned about Mr. Simmons earlier is that all those facts existed, and they still existed 44 years later. The difference is that somebody agreed now that this is the right thing to do, and I'm going to do it. And so that judge actually granted a new trial. And the minute the judge granted a new trial, the district attorney notified the court that we're not going to retry this case, because it's going to be difficult. And he told the victims that this is going to be a very difficult case to prosecute, so I'm letting y'all know, we're not gonna try to prosecute this case. He realized going forward, now needing a unanimous jury, the jury pool is gonna be totally different. The jury pool was predominately white, the first time. The jury pool's going to be predominently different. People are going to see these stories in a different way. And they run the risk of losing out right and costing the state 44 years in damages. And so he took the safest way out, the fiscal way out, saying, "I'm going to just dismiss this case, and leave it like that." It's kind of like a win win for both sides. One guy gets his freedom, and the state gets it resolved.
So I think that our Truth and Justice Roadmap is just a vehicle for the state to save face in this debacle. To be honest, you would have thought that the minute the folks in this state voted to change it would have signaled that we need to turn the corner. But a year later, the United States Supreme Court said this is wrong. In that moment, the state should have then, because everybody had been identified by then, the state should have been there roll calling everybody and saying, "Hey, what's your pleasure? We can start from scratch again, or we can call it a day." And so we are offering up this alternative for the state to take advantage of and move forward, because eventually, it's not going to stop until the dust is settled. And so if the state Supreme Court comes back and says, "Yeah, it's to be applied retroactively." Now, you've wasted four years of resolving these issues. It's like I told the prosecutor, Dr. King said, "Wait, almost always means never." So you're just asking people to wait, and just kind of like relying on the wait, hoping that you keep winning, because even if the state Supreme Court said no, that case is going back up to the United States Supreme Court, because now it's gonna be on the right track. And once we get back up there, they've already said we're not going to do it this time, but if the next case comes, we probably will. And so why are you prolonging it, because all you're doing is getting deeper and deeper in the quick sand. You know, and so by time it straightens itself out, you're going to be so far down in the hole, nobody's going to negotiate with you at all.
And I just want to make sure I heard you right, there are still 1500 people in prison today from non unanimous juries?
Those are the ones who have been identified. There may be some other folks who just can't find the documentation, because when they give the verdict slip to the judge, and the judge reads it out, they destroy it after that. The only way you know is if your lawyer decides to poll the jury. Then it's being recorded. But in most cases, once they give that jury slip to the judge, and the judge says, "Well, we have a legal verdict." But what does that mean? A legal verdict can be ten, a legal verdict can be eleven, not necessarily twelve. So the legal verdict can be legal, but illegal at the very same time.
Wow. Okay. Well, Norris, you've become known for your ability to fundraise. Did that start with Unanimous Juries? Was that the beginning of that skill set?
It was before that. It's just putting in the work. When you put in the work, the resources to find you. And I tell people all the time that people don't fund technically organizations, people fund people. If people believe in you, and believe in the work that you're doing, and they look at your track record and if you've been a part of some dynamic things, they'll be like, "I want to be a part of that. I want to support the work that you do." So I think the non unanimous just exposed what we were doing, our ability to fundraise. I think that's what it did. It exposed our ability to fundraise in that short window. And I think that that I think that became the story, the ability to fundraise in that short window, and the magnitude of resources we were able to pull in in that short window, that's what the legend became. The spotlight was on that. But then with the last election cycle, the spotlight shifted, again, back to our ability to get resources, because they became a focal point in the campaign when it shouldn't have been. The campaign should have been about the talent that you have, as opposed to the talent this other person has, not complaining about dark money. I tell people all the time, it wasn't so dark when they was getting it. It only really became dark now, because they can't get it, that's the only difference.
Well, and I think it's important for us to be able to get contributions from outside of our state, because we're such a poor state.
Exactly.
I don't know how we make progress or reforms in Louisiana, unless we're building those relationships across the country.
That's right. If we had to rely on resources internally, especially for the type of work that we're doing, CJ work, criminal justice work, it probably wouldn't happen. Because there's not enough philanthropy inside of our state to subsidize the work that needs to be done. Just being real. I mean, we've been blessed for the last couple of years, with the likes of CG Harmon and Pres (Kabacoff), and folks who convince other people to put some money behind these causes. But they're few and far between, especially with the big donors who can actually fund a campaign like that, on short notice, too. That's a plus, being blessed to have an access to folks who are willing to pick up the phone, listen at what you have to say about what you're trying to do, and kind of like believe in where you're at. Even in the beginning with the first polling that was done, that the odds were 50/50, people believed in us enough. All we needed was 50% plus one, so we was almost there. People kept saying when it was 50/50, we don't need but 50.1, there's not a whole bunch of people we need to convince, although we convinced a whole bunch of more people. But the fundraising became the story, more so than the work itself. Changing that non unanimous thing was the work, but the fundraising overshadowed it, because it happened in a short window. And I think the dollar amount really shook some people, in the sense that we were able to bring in those kinds of resources in that window.
... which were largely put into organizing across the state.
That's it. That's it. I think the biggest thing with that was, I don't know, we must've had a couple hundred people on the ground, all across this state. And that don't happen in campaigns. You know, people don't really fund organizing. But now they do. Honestly, we're being lifted up as a model in the sense of how to work these campaigns. Same thing with the campaign in Florida, Yes on Amendment 4. And what folks don't know about what happened there, we mobilized a thousand people from across this country to Florida, formerly incarcerated people, to work in that campaign. And we had a day of action, and on that day of action, we actually touched 82,000 people through predictive dialer, Hustle, regular phone banking, and door knocking. And it was striking to folks. It inspired Floridians that a thousand people would come in on their own dime to help, not on their own dime, because folks subsidized it. But in order to help, and so people saw, the powers that be, the benefit of what organizing looked like, and it took him back to the labor movement, in the sense of how the labor movement was built, was built on organizing. And they see this resurgence of that kind of organizing happening in marginalized communities all over this country. And they want to be a part of it.
And you said for Unanimous Juries we had people all across the state. Was VOTE already all across the state, as well? Or did you expand during that campaign?
No, we was all across the state already. What it did was just brought in more people. Our relationship with our folks is unique, because our folks actually are either directly impacted, or they're vicariously impacted. And those numbers are exponential. I always give the example of Angola. Angola has 6000 people in it. Everybody there can have ten people on their visiting list. So you do the aggregate, you talking about 60,000 people. That's a contact part. But those same people can have twenty people on their phone list who they can call. So now you look at twenty on the phone list, ten on the visitor list, you're talking about at least 100,000 people. And although some of those lists are going to be cross pollinated, even if you cleaned it up, you talking about roughly you can touch 100,000 people just from one institution. Well, we got 40,000 people in this state locked up. So you look at those numbers exponentially, it's more of us than it is of them. And so it's just about how do we educate those people and give them roles to play. And once they're given roles, that's it, people kind of like latch on to the role they play, and then it becomes a different thing.
Where do you have offices right now?
New Orleans is the main office. We have an office in Baton Rouge, and we have an office in Lafayette. We had office in Shreveport, but we couldn't get the kind of traction that we wanted, so we just closed , the office. We're like on a hiatus until we find the right person from that area to man that battleship. But we're looking to expand in Northeastern Louisiana, up in the Monroe area, and actually in Alexandria. That way we would have the seven points of this state covered. And so that's what we're looking at right now. So our goal for '22, '23 is to really solidify Baton Rouge and Lafayette, to target somebody in Shreveport, and then move to Alexandria, and to Monroe. And that way, we'll have major hubs inside the state, we'll be covering. That's where a lot of our work is at too, and one of the things we look to do, we will always try to have a hub in these prison communities. The way we look at, New Orleans is the biggest feeder into the system. And so we target here as the biggest feeder. And the next biggest feeder is JP, which is Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, so we combine those three parishes. But the next biggest feeder is Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Shreveport. And so we know we have family members in those areas. And so we want to build there where we have people who can actually help keep the organization afloat from having family members involved. We're looking into expand completely across the state, and those major hubs and pulling everybody within those radiuses because like Lafayette, we don't really trip off on Lake Charles, because they're like neighbors. And so that's kind of like the Lafayette, Lake Charles, Port Sulphur area, where we kind of like reach out to folks, where we really look to see where our base of people inside, where they come from. And that's kind of like a built in hub. And so it's easier for us to go in places like that and organize, as opposed to go and set up shop in St. Tammany, given the demographics, We look at those places, and then we figure it out from there. We kind of like work, like the backwards calendar. We know where we're going, we need to figure out how are we going to get there. And that's how we figure it out. Figure out who is from these parishes inside, organize them internally, and then have them send us their contact information for their families and friends. We send a survey to them and say, "Hey, look, here's this list, send us those people that's on your phone list and your visitor list, and we'll take it from there. We just need you to do the transfer on the relationship, and we'll take it from there."
And we've been successful with that transfer relationship, even more so now, because we've been getting a lot of stuff done. Folks are actually seeing the fruits of the labor. And so it's easier now that every day we get mail from folks inside saying, "Hey look, here's my mom's number, my sister, my brother, contact these folks, they're willing to help." And we go and organize those folks to start having house parties, and meeting in churches, or meeting wherever folks allow us to meet, and try to build those coalition's with whoever is existing, like NAACP, ACLU, whomever exists in those communities, go and seek them out, and showing that intersecting line. We see now popping up everywhere Together New Orleans, Together Baton Rouge, Together Louisiana. Well, we are part of all those networks, and it's striking now that everybody is realizing the intersecting lines that criminal justice plays in everything else that they do. You don't have money for this, because it's being spent over here. And if you start pulling the reins over here, you might get pulled some other things that you want to do. And so yeah, all of these Together organizations now are starting to realize that we got to have somebody at the table with us who can explain this other apparatus that's been gobbling us up for years. Hopefully no later than the end of '24, we hope to at least have re-opened the shop in Shreveport and either have done something in Alexandria or Monroe. The other thing we look at, too, is who we have in the legislature from those areas that help. Like we got Katrina Jackson, up in Monroe. So we thinking about maybe going there first, before we go to Alexandria, because at least we have an anchor who, one, can carry some of the legislation that we need done, and at the same time, have a constituency base of our folks that's pushing about what they want. So we've been trying to game plan around what this stuff looks like.
I'm glad you mentioned Together Louisiana and some of those other groups that you mentioned along the way, because it was, in my mind, the coalition from the Unanimous Juries amendment that got back together, and then had the addition of those kind of groups for the governor's reelection in 2019.
Yeah, yeah.
I really saw that organizing, particularly in that runoff, as what put him over the finish line. I've written about that, I think you know. But from your perspective, what was the great urgency of reelecting the governor?
Oh! The urgency around re-electing the governor was we were going to see everything go to hell in a handbasket. I mean, 45 was the urgency around that. That was the urgency around that. I mean, everybody was drinking that Kool Aid. It was like, oh, no, not right now. Maybe four years from now we maybe can deal with some of this stuff, but not right now. So that was the urgency. And I think the advantage we had was it didn't take much to put the band back together, you know, because we had just come off of that campaign. And this thing is like, hey, we already knew who had skills to do what. So it was easy to put the band back together, to put the show back on the road. I know that the administration is very appreciative, because if we had to build out the campaign the way we had to do, but I don't think we've been able to do it, I think because we were able to hit the ground running made all the difference in the world. We've made up a lot of ground. We made up a lot of ground, you know?
Well, I did want to ask you a popular question right now, because we do have a lot of rising crime rates across the country, and particularly in Louisiana that's a big topic of conversation. Do you have any concern that there'll be a backlash against criminal justice reform due to that?
I think in the early stages, when people are just grabbing for answers, not trying to really think this thing out, yeah, you're probably going to see that. I had a conversation with a business person last week, and the first thing he said was the business community was blaming him for supporting criminal justice stuff. And it was like, no, no, no, these are not the folks that we advocated that needed help. This is these traumatized kids from Katrina, who are of age now, and there's nothing for them to do. There's no resources in our community to help subsidize them. If we stop looking at the end result, and look at what's causing this to happen, then I think we get it. We start with like, right now, like, oh, we need 600 more police. Okay, what's the cost of 600 more police? It would be cheaper to take that money and put it into these communities and make people whole. And it was something I read in, I think it was the Tribune, the person posed a question rhetorically, to the people screaming and hollering about crime. It's like, "I'm wondering, how did you vote about affordable housing? How did you vote about increasing the minimum wage? Because if you voted no, on both of those, you're complicit in why we're having crime." Those two things would have been the gateway for folks to come up and out of the situations that they're in. And so I'm just hopeful that we can slow this train right now, that's coming down this track and get people to say, "Wait a minute, this is not just happening in New Orleans. This is happening across this country." The symptoms is caused by, one, the pandemic. The pandemic pushed thousands of people out of the workforce.
I thought I would never see this in my life. I was in New York last year, and I was looking at these boarded up places for sale, for lease, and I was like, in New York really? But places just that was there, like the Yats be saying, "They ain't dere no mo," you know well, they need to make one for New York. I'm talking about in Time Square. They can make one, it ain't dere no more. And that is a contributor to how this thing is starting to happen, there's not enough resources going around. At the height of the pandemic, when people started hoarding Lysol, hoarding tissue paper, those kind of things. When people go to the store, there's no bread on the shelf for me to buy, it's like, I'm going to eat, we just need to figure out whose bread it's going to be. Put in a different way, the shelf is stocked with bread, but I don't have no money, I'm going to eat, y'all just need to figure out whose money I'm going to be spending to buy the bread. And I think they need to kind of like just slow down for a minute, stop pointing fingers at each other, and figure this thing out that we need to reallocate resources. I think one of the tragic things about over the what I call the George Floyd summer was the hashtag about defund the police. And I think we're in a space right now where people need to really explain what that means. Defund the police don't mean we don't need police. It don't mean that. Defund the police means let me get some of those dollars that you're over budgeted, and put it somewhere else that can help y'all. Some of that money we give to you, y'all don't need. We can give it to mental health people to deal with folks who deal with mental health crisis. People are hungry right now. This surplus budget you got, let me take some of that money and help some people get a house, so you won't have to be showing up at these domestic situations. I mean, these domestic things are coming, because people are pinned into these spaces. Somebody lost a job, now we're going to be homeless, on the street, and all that creates this tension and distress, because in the hood, it's not raining enough. In the hood, the money is not there.
And I'm gonna close it with this, it's like the story I was sharing with this business person. It's like, the lion in the jungle. When the lion goes down to the waterhole, there's typically water buffalo all over the place. So he don't have to worry about being hungry. He knows the water buffalo are going to be there. But the minute he goes down to that waterhole, and the water buffalo's gone, do you think the lion is going to sit there? No, the lion is going to follow the water buffalo. The water buffalo now is the French Quarter, Magazine Street, Prytania Street, places you neve saw the lion, because there was food at the waterhole. He didn't have to go anywhere else. But when all the food is removed from the waterhole, the lion is going to find the food. And that's what's happening. I mean, can you see this stuff? This stuff is crazy. This stuff happening at Costco in broad daylight. But we have to deal with the symptoms of that, what is causing this to happen, causing folks to kind of like just put themselves in harm's way? It's like the little kid, you know, you get caught for that, now you're connected to something else. How callous can you be at 16, 17, 18 years old? Something else is going on there. And we need to try to figure out what that something else is, you know, and I think until we actually sit down, the powers that be, all these different entities, sit down together and figure it out, this isn't going to go away no time soon. We were doing well before the pandemic sent in. So I think that should be the starting point, how we were doing for the pandemic.
I tell people all the time all across this country, I would never have thought that our police department would have come in line with the consent decree before our jail did. The police department's like 1500 moving parts, but they've almost completed the mandate from the consent decree. And so to be having the problems they're having now is not because they weren't doing a good job. It's because things that's far beyond their control, those external things. They can't stop crime. They don't know when crime is going to happen. I mean, you know, these domestic disputes, that's in somebody's house. The police couldn't stop that, that was going to happen. Now the police can help us resolve what has happened, and try to find the person responsible for it. And then the system would deal with that accordingly. But we have to stop blaming the police and saying, "Oh, the police ain't doing their job." What do you want them to do? They can sit on everybody's step. If they're sitting on this step here, somebody with bad intention to do somethingis going to look up and say, "Oh, the police is over there. We're going over here." You know what the perfect example of that? Cease Fire. Remember when Cease Fire first got started? For 207 days, while they were in Central City, there never was any gun violence. And then all of a sudden, they said, "Well, we need to send Cease Fire somewhere else." And when you spread them too thin, then everything started popping up everywhere, Central City included. And that's what we're doing with the police now, we're spreading them too thin. Let them people do what they're trained to do. They respond to things, they don't prevent anything from happening. You know, same thing with cameras. Cameras just gonna say smile, you're on Candid Camera. It ain't gonna stop it from happening. It's just gonna to catch it because it happened. And I think if we kind of like put those things into real perspective, and just breathe for a minute, because this too will pass.
This is how we got into this mass incarceration thing, by this very same thing, by selling fear. Fear sells. I've weaned my way away from the news. At nighttime, I'm on the western channel, and I'm watching reruns of Gunsmoke, and Wagon Train, and Cheyenne, and stuff like that, you know, stuff that I know that's make believe stuff. But we have to wean ourselves away and begin thinking how complicit we are in these things. You know, for all the people who want to take the streets about crime, it goes back to that article I read: How did you vote about affordable housing? How did you vote about raising the minimum wage? How do you vote about Airbnbs? All this stuff plays a part in this stuff, you know? So until we are willing to holistically look at this thing, this bandaide ain't gonna cut it.
Well, Norris, what's your next big project? Do you know?
They just drop in our lap, to be honest with you. One of the things is to kind of finish off all the stuff we're doing, making sure these policies that we've changed actually come to fruition. We've been doing some redistricting work right now and trying to really educate folks about what this looks like, what the importance of it is. And although we are kind of behind the gun, one of the things that I'm interested in is changing our city charter, you know, because our city charter just requires to have five council districts. Whereas like, right now, those districts require 70,000 people there. Some of those districts have like overpopulation by about 13,000 people. District C is under by I think almost 20,000 people. But C could be big enough, if we broke those districts down, split them in half, to like 30 to 35,000 people, we can create at least 11 to 13 city council districts. People would be closer to the power. Then these folks who run these neighborhood organizations won't have to be trying to raise $200,000 to $300,000 to run for a job that pays $80,000. Then we will have people who are part of communities pushing for the change that you want to see inside the community. So the biggest thing right now is, for me, in our organization is looking at that. One of the things we did during the last election cycle with all the city council people we interviewed was asking them where they stand on this. I don't believe one person can service 70,000+ people, Our councilmanic districts are larger than our legislative districts, and that don't make no sense. So now I understand why people go to legislature and leave, because it's like, one, it's not enough pay, two, it's not as impactful as you can be on the city council. So I always use the East. The East runs from the river to the lake, on the other side of the canal. So on the river, we got all the rich Democrats. On the lake, we got all the rich Republicans, and everybody in between. Same thing with district A, rive to the lake, parish line, and everybody in between. How can you service those diverse neighbhorhoods. You can't. And so let's break this thing down, and the only way you can break it down is change the city charter. Because if we had a million people in New Orleans, our charter requires us to have to 200,000 people in each district. Impossible. Impossible. So that's a thing we're working on right now. That's our game plan.
And how would people plug into your work?
Oh, our website. Just go to our website: https://www.vote-nola.org. And from that link, you can actually link it to our sister organization, if you want to engage in Voters Organized: : https://www.votersorganized.org.
I'll put the links to your websites in the episode notes, so it'll be an easy way for folks to connect to you. We're on the last three questions, and I ask a different version of these every episode. Norris, what's the biggest hurdle against progress on criminal justice reform in Louisiana?
People not realizing their impediments. Some people who I think they don't push far enough. Sometimes I think people just don't want to ruffle feathers, don't want to push that envelope. The prime example is JP (Morrell). Nobody wanted to carry that piece of (Unanimous Juries) legislation. That was a hard piece of legislation. But as it started progressing through, then the allies started showing up. But nobody wanted to be the person to do the heavy lifting. And that's what it is with a lot of things. And it's like the impediment to this is like, like, right now stuff is happening negatively in the community with crime. And so here, you're trying to get something done, and people are like, "No, wait." We need to do this, because again, once you start educating people about what are the sources of all this discontent, then I think it becomes easier. You don't have to do it all in one fell swoop, you can do it incrementally. Let's do it a little piece at a time, see what the results are, do a little more, then you keep on doing. But you can't stop, because if you stop, all it's going to do is bottle neck again. And when that pressure get in that cap, it's gonna pop off. And then you're gonna be trying to figure out how did we get to where we at? But we saw it coming. And the thing is, you just got to start reducing it.
The folks in Together Baton Rouge, they're running a campaign about ended life without parole in Louisiana, because their light has come on, like, "Wait a minute, man. We're the only people in this country that's punishing people this way. When is enough enough?" Granted some people may be in prison for some very, very bad things. But at what point do we reconcile with that? We have to give everybody this opportunity, whether they take advantage of it or not. We have to present the opportunity. And that's all we asking for, creating opportunity for them. Whether or not they succeed, at that point is on them, whether they do the necessary things that creates the opportunities for them.
But yeah, that's the biggest hurdle is that people don't think it can get done. And that's one of the challenges with folks. You have to go back to the old adage: If you can conceive it, believe it, you can achieve it. And I think that's the way it has to be. If we went into everything like woe is me, we would never start. So you have to go into it as like, I will use the fundraising piece of it, I go into every one of those situations believing I can sell milk to a cow. So we have to believe in these things that we're working on. And actually, you know, our theory again is highlighting what the crisis is, shifting frame, but also having a solution. We can't rely on other people to have the solution for the problems that we have identified, you know, because if they had the solution, it probably would have been implemented already. They don't have one. So we can't just show up and say, "Hey, look, would you do such and such?" Well, they don't have a clue. But here's a roadmap for you to do it. So the Truth and Justice Roadmap, that's it. Here's the roadmap, you know, we highlighted the crisis, it's non unanimous. We've shifted the frame. But here's the solution. We can't wait around on your solution, because y'all see from the same perspective, y'all got blinders on. Remove the blinders, and you can see that this other stuff exists outside of that, that we can make happen.
And what's our biggest opportunity for progress in criminal justice reform?
Our biggest opportunities is kind of like steady, continue to educate people, and keep them engaged. We can't use them in cycles. We can't wait until these election cycles come up, and then go and try to engage with folks. We have to keep people engaged year round about things that's not important to us, but that's important to them. And once we get to that point, when it becomes something important to us, oh they'll be coming to us saying, "Hey, we want to help you, because you helped us." It's like, right now, there's this thing that I'm engaged in, this bio-district. And it don't impacts where I live at, but it impacts where I work at. But it impacts the people living in his area, where people may be talking about appropriating their homes and stuff, like they did after Katrina. And so I'm like, "No, I'm here to lend my voice, because I'm gonna teach you how to organize." If I don't have nothing to bring to the table, at least I got that skill I can help y'all with. And so it's like, I know, showing up for those meetings, and sharing with people the knowledge we have, has already been a windfall for that committee, because now it's like, we need to have more meetings, and we need to go and talk to our neighbors about what's going on, and bringing people in to help. And so I think that's the biggest thing, that's how we overcome. It's like SWOT, you know, what's our strengths, our weaknesses, opportunities and threats? I just explain to people how to identify those things, like the redistricting piece, we just talked about this bio-district, like the person who represents them now in the legislature, the way they created the New Orleans district, half the people in that room is no longer in that person's district. And I'm like, but you know what happened? Y'all wasn't at the table when that conversation was being had. Now, y'all need to figure out what happens next, because you're gonna get somebody who's smack brand new, who don't understand your wants, needs and desires. At least the person you hadn't understood that. But y'all did lean on that person enough to have that person stand up and say, :Nope, you can't draw the line that way. You have to draw the line a different way." And I think that's one of the things we fail, really, is holding all of those people accountable. And, you know, like one of the guys on the campaign, I like to give people credit when I pick up stuff and use it, Kevin Griffin, one of his themes was: accountability is not an attack. And I think we have to approach people and explain to them, "Hey, this is not an attack. I'm here to hold you accountable. You're not there to fulfill your wants, needs and desires. You're there to fulfill ours. Here's our wish lists. Take it. If you don't go nowhere, fine, at least you tried, but don't go there and then force feed us." And I explained to those folks, redistricting should be us choosing who we want to represent us. It has turned into them decide who they want to represent. You know, if we leave them to their devices, ain't no telling what we're going to wind up with.
That's true. Norris, who's your favorite superhero?
Ah, my superhero really is my grandmother. She's not with us, but my superhero's my grandmother, who passed when I was like 13 years old. And it's just amazing when I look back at all the stuff that she instilled in me. I find myself doing something and being like, "Where'd you get that from?" And it always goes back to my grandmother, so that is my superhero.
That's lovely. That's lovely. Well, thank you again for joining me Norris. It's truly an honor to have you conversing with me on Louisiana Lefty. I really, really, really appreciate it.
Glad to be here. Next time there's a campaign, you know where to fine me.
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