Civil rights activist Desmond Meade shares his journey to empower communities and highlight how every citizen has the power to inspire meaningful change. Fireside chat moderated by Hope McMath, founder and director of Yellow House, an organization that works at the intersection of art, civic engagement, and social justice. Desmond Meade is a formerly homeless returning citizen who overcame many obstacles to eventually become the President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), Chair of Floridians for a Fair Democracy, a graduate of Florida International University College of Law, a Ford Global Fellow, and a 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Fellow.As President and Executive Director of FRRC, which is recognized for its work on voting and criminal justice reform issues, Desmond led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. Amendment 4 represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century and brought an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx