Alonzo Knox

We seek people who represent our values and work ethic. Not all candidates have proven the ability or inclination to cooperate and build teams, and only a massive movement of non-partisan cooperation will lead us to the societal reforms we need around the criminal legal system.

To address the issues of housing and employment, for example, we need to work with developers and employers. To address the failures of our schools, we need to work with teachers and administrators. This isn’t a time for “might makes right” and talking over people. We need to connect and work with people. And the best candidates in that role may look a little differently depending on the arena. We believe Alonzo Knox will follow the lead of Royce Duplessis, and be an excellent representative for the residents of District 93 and New Orleans.

As Alonzo said in our interview with him, he is “proud” to be running against two formerly incarcerated people. We agree that this fact alone shows how far we have come as a community, and those candidates should, and will, be taken seriously. We fought for and won, voting rights. We fought to reduce the waiting period for someone running for office from 15 years post-sentence down to 5 year waiting period.

However, demographics alone should never be the sole reason to vote for someone. We wish all the candidates the best in their careers, but in this election, we are turning to Alonzo Knox. We have no doubt that there will be formerly incarcerated people representing us in the Legislature very soon, and this is one reason we will be launching a candidate school in the coming months.