Kenneth Glasgow has registered thousands of Alabama inmates in prisons and jails to vote.

He estimates he helped turn out 10,000 voters for U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, in the 2017 special election that pitted Jones against Republican former Chief Justice Roy Moore.

“We’re like a hidden vote,” Glasgow said. “You can’t count us out, you have to count us in. Once we register and fill out the absentee ballots, those votes count.”

Glasgow is a former felon himself, who served 14 years in a Florida prison on drug and robbery charges before his release in 2001. While still in prison, he founded The Ordinary People Society, which registers felons to vote.

“It’s the continuation of the civil rights movement,” Glasgow said. “From the back of the bus, to the front of the prison, the struggle continues.”

This week, Glasgow was in Birmingham to meet with African Methodist Church leaders at the AME 9th Episcopal District headquarters.

The AME, with about 300 churches in Alabama, has agreed to partner with the Ordinary People Society in training ministers to help register inmates to vote.

“This will be impactful, not only for the 2020 election,” Glasgow said. “We are doing this for municipal elections in August 2019.”

The inmates cast absentee ballots for their last place of residence, so it can impact elections throughout the state, Glasgow said.

Other partner organizations are Alabama Justice Initiative, Prodigal Child Project, Faith in Action and Live Free, said the Rev. Ulysses Kincey, coordinator of social justice work for the AME 9th district, which covers all of Alabama. “We’re coming together for a coalition,” said Kincey.

“We are beginning a campaign to secure the voting rights of incarcerated individuals,” said Daniel Schwartz, executive director of Faith in Action Alabama. “We’re talking about how grassroots organizations can be working together.”

The groups are calling for Alabama to take action in response to the U.S. Department of Justice report this year that there is reasonable cause to believe conditions in Alabama prisons violate the Constitution.

“People of color are a minority, yet 70 percent of the prison system is us,” Kincey said. “One-third of the incarcerated in the world are in the United States. Either we’re the worst people in the world, or the justice system is broken. There’s something wrong with that picture.”

The coalition of groups plans to rally for action “to do something about overcrowding and inhumane conditions,” Kincey said.

Voting rights for felons

In 2008, Glasgow won his federal lawsuit against the State of Alabama for not allowing him to visit prisons and jails to register people to vote if they had not committed crimes of moral turpitude, after the Alabama Republican Party had complained.

“That lawsuit made it clear to sheriffs and those who ran jails that inmates did have a right to vote,” Schwartz said.

Glasgow’s lawsuit led to the 2017 passage of the Moral Turpitude Act in Alabama, which defines which crimes result in the loss of voting privileges. Since determining which crimes are of moral turpitude had historically been left to county voter registrars, it essentially left all felons without voting rights.

“For 106 years, from 1901 to 2008, they were taking people’s voting rights away illegally,” Glasgow said. “Anybody with a felony conviction.”

The 2017 law now lists several dozen felony convictions that are considered crimes "of moral turpitude," which means that anyone convicted of one of them loses the right to vote; other felons are now eligible to restore that right. Previously, the list of crimes that some registrars considered to be "of moral turpitude" was not clearly defined, and many felons simply believed they could never regain the right to vote.

“It was a right that existed but was not being respected,” Schwartz said. “Rev. Glasgow has been the architect in many ways in Alabama in voting rights for the incarcerated.”

Glasgow’s efforts to register felons to vote before the 2017 special election for U.S. senate in Alabama alarmed the conservative web site Breitbart, which published a story under the headline, “Soros Army in Alabama to Register Convicted Felons to Vote Against Roy Moore.”

There are still obstacles in the way, Glasgow said.

“A lot of the inmates don’t even know they have the right to vote,” Glasgow said. “They are supposed to put up flyers that are visible. They do have a right to vote and should exercise their right to vote. Some of the wardens are not giving them their voting registration forms when they ask for them, or not mailing their ballots for them. Some jails and prisons make it difficult. There’s a process for absentee voting.”

Sharpton is Glagow’s brother – and uncle

Glasgow has a nationally famous civil rights activist as his champion, the Rev. Al Sharpton Jr., who is both his brother and uncle.

“He supports everything I do,” Glasgow said of Sharpton. “He’s my brother; he’s my uncle.”

They have the same father, and Sharpton’s mother is Glasgow’s grandmother. Al Sharpton Sr. and Ada are parents of Al Sharpton Jr.

Ada had a daughter, Tina, from her first marriage. Tina was raised by Ada’s parents, sharecroppers outside Dothan. When Al Sharpton Jr. was 9, his dad Al Sharpton Sr. had a sexual relationship with Tina. Tina gave birth to Kenneth Glasgow in May 1965. After Al Sr. and Tina split, Ada and her daughter Tina reconciled and Glasgow and Sharpton grew closer in their relationship as half-brothers on their father’s side and uncle-nephew on their mother’s side.

Sharpton frequently speaks at the annual spring banquet for Glasgow’s ministry in Dothan.

“He’s been down here quite a few times,” Glasgow said. “He comes down when I have big issues that are too big for me to handle alone. I call my big brother.”

Murder charge against Glasgow

One thing that may hinder Glasgow’s efforts is his personal battle with the legal system.

Last year, Glasgow made news when he was charged with capital murder for driving Jamie Townes, who shot Breunia Jennings, 23. Breunia had stolen Jamie’s car, a Monte Carlo.

Glasgow expects the charge to be dropped. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

“It’s still pending,” Glasgow said. “I have not been indicted.”

Glasgow said he was simply giving Townes a ride to help find his car.

“I’ve been doing re-entry work since 2001,” he said. “We carry people places all the time. We don’t know when they are going to act crazy. How could I know? It could have happened to anyone. If I could bring that girl back, I would.”