The NAACP’s Online Campaign to Free the Scott Sisters
The NAACP currently has an online petition circulated the Web on behalf of the Scott sisters who are currently serving double life sentences in Mississippi. In 1993, were involved in an armed robbery that only netted $11. Despite the crime being both sisters’ first offense, they were each sentenced to a double life sentence. The petition is an effort to secure either a pardon or commuted sentence for the sisters or a “compassionate medical release” for Jamie Scott who is suffering from renal failure in one of her kidneys.
According to USA Today, Benjamin Jealous, President of the NAACP has asked Gov. Haley Barbour for a pardon.
“It is a travesty that in the state of Mississippi, the lives of two Black women are valued at little more than 11 dollars,” Jealous said in a statement. “From the outset, the measures in which the Scott Sisters were convicted were questionable and pattern themselves after dubious criminal justice trends in Mississippi and nationwide. We intend to pursue justice to the fullest extent for the Scott Sisters, and will continue our push for criminal justice reform throughout America.”
The online petition, which can be found on the NAACP’s revamped website, is only one of the methods the organization is using to spread the word of the Scott sisters’ plight. They’re incorporated social media into their petition effort, using Twitter and Facebook to get more people over to the website. Once you visit the petition on NAACP.org, visitors can read about the case and fill out the petition. Once completed, the users are taken to a page thanking them for their digital signature and giving them the option to spread the word to social media connects. The Twitter message is as follows: $11 cost the #ScottSisters their lives, speak out against this injustice by signing the @NAACP pledge http://bit.ly/cZn2FL.
This latest campaign is a great example of how the NAACP has made a serious commitment to utilizing technology to continue to spread its message of racial equality and fight injustice whenever and wherever it appears.
Category: Featured, social media | Tags: Benjamin Jealous, facebook, Gladys Scott, Gov. Haley Barbour, Jamie Scott, NAACP, online petition, social media, Social Networking, twitter
About the Author Sherri is a freelance writer that has a love of all things fun and geeky including gadgets, gaming, anime, and comics. When she isn't writing or out on the town living it up, she loves doing 10-12 hour marathon sessions on her Xbox 360 or one of her older consoles. It's not an addiction, it's a way of life!
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