(ThyBlackMan.com) Another election campaign season is upon us and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Agents of change have surfaced to challenge and undo the calamities of the past eight years. This is no small task. Yet for all its enormity, the catalyst for change starts with the simplest of actions: voting. While apathy has been an issue in previous elections, a more subtle and diabolical undertone still exists.
For the sake of street credibility and staying on our collective tongues, some rappers seem to embrace catching charges and doing time in jail. However, what they have effectively done is endorse disenfranchisement: the process 
of denying the inalienable rights of a citizen – specifically, the right to vote. Apparently, not snitching and bearing illegal arms take precedence over the hard earned duty and privilege of voting.
If you will, recall the statistics that are consistently driven into our consciousness regarding the number of Black men in jail outnumbering those in college. Now imagine the impact of all those potential voters on Election Day! Just imagine if they’d never been locked up in the first place.
Remember the final battle in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King? Just when things were looking insurmountable, Aragorn rallied the Army of the Dead. Their numbers turned the tide because their forces had been long forgotten. Amassed and full of vigor, once they were released they were an unstoppable force and a powerful ally that helped secure victory and topple the evil that was usurping control.
We’ve got our own dead men walking around in cells across this nation waiting for an opportunity to reform, regroup and be reconstituted into society. With proper guidance and education, their voices can echo alongside those who died for our voting rights to turn the tide in future elections.
excerpt from this poem I wrote called Afraid of My Own Strength (full poem can be found at; http://steelwaterspoetry.com/strengthpoem.html):
“…I could benefit from a prison break –
but I’m accustomed to the accommodations.
I’m used to syringes and prison rapes –
I’ve adjusted to subconscious complacence.
I can’t function beyond its cadence –
I’m a mentally brutalized integer.
I’ll likely go when released, but I’ll return –
my environment must love me.
With an I.P.O. to greet me, I’ll be worked –
my retirement fund is the government’s keep…
I admire freedom begrudgingly –
I am an institutionalized prisoner…”
Staff Writer; Reggie Legend
Can find more about this writer over at; http://www.steelwaterspoetry.com/blog
Also available as a Keynote Speaker – Book him Today; Speakerwiki – Reggie Legend