An Important Moment for Civil Rights

Ben Jealous @ Huffington Post - During the past two weeks, in response to successful grassroots campaigns, two governors have released black Americans who had been railroaded by our nation's criminal justice system.

Together, these cases speak to the urgent need for the work the NAACP and our allies are doing to encourage more Governors to use their clemency authority as our nation's founding fathers intended by freeing more deserving people more frequently.

The most recent victory is that of Jamie and Gladys Scott, two Mississippi sisters who have been imprisoned for 16 years on double-life sentences. They were each condemned to this extraordinary sentence as teenagers for a first-time offense in which $11 was stolen and no one was hurt. Read more.