KFTC's members attended today's Rally for Recovery in Louisville, hosted by PAR (People Advocating Recovery). It's an annual event organized by people in long term recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs, their families, and friends with the goal of building community and reducing the negative perceptions associated with addiction recovery. It has been PAR's experience that the road to recovery is filled with obstacles that hinder reintegration into society and one of those obstacles is felony disenfranchisement. Kentucky is one of just a handful of states where if someone is convicted of a felony, even something not serious enough to warrant one day in jail in some cases, they lose the right to vote for the rest of their lives unless given the right to vote back by a governor's pardon.
That's not right. We think that all people should be allowed to vote and at the least, former felons ought to be given the right to vote back after they've served their debty to society.
KFTC members were on hand at today's event to help people who could to register to vote and we circulated petitions to lawmakers to restore voting rights to former felons who have served their debt to society.
In all, we got nearly 300 petition signatures and several voter registrations, plus we connected with several key ally organizations and former felons who are willing to tell their stories to move this issue forward.
On August 4, Anthony Thigpenn addressed the hundreds of KFTC members at our 2018 Annual Membership Meeting. Thigpenn is a Los Angeles-based community organizer with more than 30 years of experience. He currently leads California Calls, a powerful alliance of 31 organizations in 12 counties around the state. The primary mission of California Calls is to achieve progressive, long-term tax and fiscal policy reform by engaging underrepresented, low-income voters in state public policy decision-making.
Anthony is widely recognized as a leading expert in grassroots, civic engagement technology and programs. He ran successful field campaigns for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Congresswoman Karen Bass, State Senator Kevin de León, and former City Councilmember Martin Ludlow, among others.
We are excited to share his speech and question and answer session with you below.
It was 37 years ago today – August 17, 1981 – that a group of 26 people from 12 counties meeting in Hazard agreed to officially form a new organization: KFTC, then known as the Kentucky Fair Tax Coalition.
"People, especially in eastern Kentucky, were getting to know each other. All around the region there was a loose network of people who had worked together with each other in various ways over the past 15 years or so. What we didn't have in those days was a structured connection between us. There was a no interlocking of these community-level efforts, until KFTC." – Herb E. Smith, Letcher County
According to the book Making History: The First Ten Years of KFTC:
"We just knew that it made sense to work together across county lines because the problems we faced were similar and needed to be addressed on the state or national level," said Gladys Maynard, who was representing the Concerned Citizens of Martin County and became KFTC's first chairperson.
“Protect our water” was the strong and clear message of close to 100 people who attended a July 26 public forum on a proposal to abandon regional water standards for the Ohio River by the multistat
KFTC’s annual meeting once again demonstrated the power that a 37-year-old grassroots organization can bring to bear. Harnessing the people power of its near 12,000 strong members, KFTC brought together over 300 of its membership in Berea. They attended multiple workshops throughout a weekend full of training, learning, dialogue and fellowship.
Aside from the necessary administration of chapter petitions, platform changes, officer elections and recognizing the significant work and contributions of many, KFTC’s annual meeting is a time for its membership, which spans the entire commonwealth of Kentucky, to meet and talk face to face. For such a large, decentralized organization, this time is invaluable for networking, planning and growing. It’s a time for members to connect with each other when they otherwise might not, and this aspect of the meeting found special emphasis this year with the theme of “Creating Kentucky’s Beloved Community.”
I want to thank KFTC for helping my husband Alvin and me keep the despair and darkness away during the last year. Last night marked our first anniversary with the Rowan County chapter. Although we joined in April at an event in Lexington, our first meeting locally was the 2017 annual meeting.
We recruited four more members by September, all of whom have been active on the Democracy Team. All of us except Alvin, who will soon begin working full-time with KFTC through December, have signed up to serve on local and state-wide committees. Alvin brought a new member to the annual meeting last night, and a couple more college students are going to other chapters back home this summer, then coming to the Rowan chapter in the fall as new members.
Members of the Perry County KFTC Chapter of gathered Tuesday in Hazard in front of U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers' office to protest the separation of families and stand in solidarity with immigrants being targeted by ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
The KFTC members met with Danielle Smoot of Rogers' staff to discuss the issue of separating families at the border. They asked for a meeting with Rogers when he is in Kentucky during a congressional recess.
There is a real fear that causes people from other countries to seek asylum in the U.S., Susan Hull of Perry County pointed out. "I lived in Nicaragua for three years. There are ‘the missing’ as they call them, the army comes in and then people are missing the next day. I know that it's true, but it's something that some of my friends here think is made up. There is a real fear."
In June, Harlan County KFTC member Stanley Sturgill spoke at a congressional forum about poverty hosted by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep Elijah Cummings and coordinated with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Aside from the necessary administration of chapter petitions, platform changes, officer elections and recognizing the significant work and contributions of many, KFTC’s annual meeting is a time for its membership, which spans the entire commonwealth of Kentucky, to meet and talk face to face. For such a large, decentralized organization, this time is invaluable for networking, planning and growing. It’s a time for members to connect with each other when they otherwise might not, and this aspect of the meeting found special emphasis this year with the theme of “Creating Kentucky’s Beloved Community.”
