Nearly two months after his stirring acceptance speech at the Oscars, John Legend is putting his celebrity to good use yet again. On Monday (April 13) the “Glory” singer launched the FREE AMERICA campaign, an effort that works to end mass incarceration. As a part of the multiyear initiative, Legend will be performing at a correctional facility Thursday (April 17) in Austin, Texas and participate in a press conference with state legislators to discuss Texas’ criminal justice system.
“We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend told the Huffington Post in a recent interview. “It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.”
Legend will also be making his rounds to a California state prison as well as co-host a criminal justice event with Politico in Washington, D.C. later this month. According to the Grammy award-winning singer, FREE AMERICA has shown promise in its early stages with the the passing of Proposition 47, which lessens sentences for crimes such as fraud, forgery, and petty theft by classifying them as misdemeanors instead of felonies.
Other celebrities are expected to join Legend’s initiative and will be announced at a later date. “I don’t want to live in a nation that criminalizes addiction and poverty,” Legend said.
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