Voting-rights leader’s civil rights restored
Desmond Meade, an Orlando man who overcame homelessness and drug addiction to earn a law degree and lead a sweeping movement to restore the voting rights of former felons, had his civil rights restored by the state clemency board this week, allowing him to vote, run for office and finally take the bar exam.
Meade, 54, made the tearful announcement on Twitter Saturday, surrounded by family who handed him the certificate of the decision as a surprise after learning about the decision Saturday morning.
“Whew, another chapter in the journey. Another, I guess, example of perseverance,” Meade said. “When I didn’t get it when I first wanted it — it shows you just got to keep pushing. This is amazing.”
Meade recently won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, one of the highest honors recognizing an individual’s contribution to society, the charitable foundation announced Sept. 28.
The recognition comes with a $625,000 no-strings-attached prize — money that Meade, 54, said will fuel his continued work and help pay off student loans from law school.
Meade previously won the Orlando Sentinel’s 2018 Central Floridian of the Year for his efforts to pass Florida’s Amendment 4, supported by nearly 65% of voters, which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with previous felony convictions. At the time, Florida was one of only three remaining states that permanently banned people with felony convictions from voting. The amendment excluded felons convicted of murder and sex crimes.
Meade lobbied across the state, helping to gather more than 750,000 signatures to place the measure on the 2018 ballot, and became chairman of Floridians for a Fair Democracy and president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.
In April 2019, Time magazine named Meade one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the University of Florida’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service also named him the 2019 Floridian of the Year.
The restoration of Meade’s civil rights has been a long road but as Meade said in the video, restoring his civil rights also was “not a pardon.”
At a clemency board hearing in Tallahassee in September 2020, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said while “I’m not saying that he hasn’t done good things,” he would not grant a pardon because of Meade’s dishonorable discharge from the Army.
Meade, a St. Croix native, moved to Florida as a child and joined the U.S. Army after high school. While serving, he became addicted to cocaine and began a downward spiral of joblessness, homelessness and crime, leading to drug and firearm charges in 2001 before he turned his life around, earning a law degree.
“It’s definitely a step,” Meade said. “The restoration of my civil rights definitely helped remove some hurdles for me.”
“I could apply for the Florida Bar now. I can get a house. I could run for office if I wanted to run for office. This is good,” he added.
Kate Santich and Steve Lemongello contributed to this reporting.