“Felons are typically stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. They're relegated to a permanent undercaste.”

American writer, attorney, and civil rights activist

Michelle Alexander is an American writer, attorney, and civil rights activist, best known for her 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Her work centers on race, criminal justice, and the lasting effects of mass incarceration in the United States. Since 2018, she has also written as an opinion columnist for The New York Times, extending that critique into public commentary and debate.