“As a formerly incarcerated person, coming into that knowledge and the understanding of that, to me in many ways was reminiscent of the thought of what it was like to be an enslaved person,” said Lateef, who registered to vote a week after being released from a life sentence for participating in a robbery in which an older accomplice shoved the victim, who died 18 days later of heart failure. “You couldn’t vote. Yet, your body was counted to create power within small rural counties that otherwise would not receive the representation.”