Norris Hendeson

Norris Henderson is the Founder and Executive Director of VOTE and its sister organization, Voters Organized to Educate. Henderson is a former OSI Soros Justice Fellow, and has had tremendous success impacting public discourse about reentry, police accountability, public defense for poor and indigent people, and reforming the notorious Orleans Parish Prison (OPP). In 2018, Norris served as the statewide campaign director for the Unanimous Jury Coalition, a ballot campaign that ended non-unanimous juries, and thus Jim Crow’s last stand in, Louisiana. As someone who was wrongfully incarcerated for 27 years, Norris has first-hand experience of the racism and brutality of the criminal justice system. He was a jailhouse lawyer, a co-founder of the Angola Special Civics Project, and a trailblazer for freeing other wrongfully convicted people. While incarcerated, Norris co-founded a hospice program and drafted a successful parole reform law for Lifers.