Finally ‘off paper,’ Columbus ex-felon relishes voting for the first time
Back when Terrence Flowers was a kid growing up in Columbus around Steam Mill Road at Northstar Drive – “The Drive,” folks called it – he used to watch CNN with his father.
His dad liked the contentious political talk show “Crossfire,” and young Terrence occasionally chimed in.
“I sometimes used to watch it with him, and I’d say something, and he’d call me ‘old blue dog.’ And I didn’t know what that was until I got older, and he was talking about a Democrat, I guess a conservative Democrat,” Flowers recalled. “He used to always call me that, off things I used to say.”
Back then Flowers had just a casual interest in politics. He envisioned working in professional sports, when he grew up: “My dream as a child was to be a physical therapist,” he said. “I wanted to work for the Falcons.”
A diverted path
But his life didn’t play out that way. Instead of working for the Atlanta Falcons football team, the boy whose father called him “blue dog” became a twice-convicted felon whose politics mattered little, because felons couldn’t vote in Georgia.
When he was a reckless youth, voting didn’t matter that much to Flowers, but it mattered to his mother, who worked the voting polls and urged her son to register. He told her he would, but never got around to it – until this fall.
On Sept. 29, Flowers at age 47 finished the 10 years’ probation he got for a 2010 drug conviction, and once he was “off paper,” his voting rights were restored.
“Coming ‘off paper’ means the end of your sentence,” he told the Ledger-Enquirer during a recent interview at his Buena Vista Road gym, 4.0 Fitness. “Sometimes, you might get a five-year sentence, you might get out on parole, but you’re technically still on paper until that five-year sentence is up. You’re still on probation, even though you’re not physically seeing a probation officer, you’re still on paper, so if something ever happens, they can revoke your probation and you can go back to jail.”
Having finally reached that milestone, Flowers was able to register and vote for the first time in his life. He cast his ballot early, in person, on Oct. 25 at the Shirley B. Winston Recreation Center on Steam Mill Road, not far from where he grew up.
“I dedicate this to my mom JoAnne Oliver,” he wrote on a Facebook post, with a short video. “This was for you mom!”
Felons
Ex-felons can vote in Georgia as long as they’ve successfully completed their sentence, including any probation after serving prison time, and have paid off their fines.
Other costs they still may owe, such as court fees or restitution, should not preclude their voting, under guidance issued by the Georgia Secretary of State:
“You are considered to have completed your felony sentence for the purpose of voter eligibility if you have completed any term of incarceration, probation, or parole and paid all fines, unless such fines are cancelled upon completion of your term of incarceration, probation, or parole (e.g., when the fines were imposed ‘as a condition of probation,’ they are automatically cancelled upon completion of probation),” the guidance states. “Your felony sentence is considered completed even if you have outstanding monetary obligations other than fines, such as unpaid restitution, fees, costs, or surcharges.”
According to the Southern Center for Human Rights, ex-felons are not required to document that they’ve fulfilled their obligations: “You do not need to provide anything to prove that you are done with your sentence. Your right to vote is automatically restored once your sentence is complete,” the center says.
For Flowers, coming “off paper” and regaining the right to vote symbolized leaving his troubled past behind. That and reuniting with his family, including his four children, drove him to avoid the temptations that got him into trouble before.
“It was very important to me that I was here for my family, so I made sure that I kept my nose clean, and I stayed out of trouble,” he said of serving out his probation. “I didn’t have no kind of criminal intent, but I had that feeling that I’m getting my rights back, some of them, and I told my mom when I die, I want to die with all my rights, my Second Amendment rights, all my rights. The rights I was born with are the rights I want to die with.”
Flowers was 20 when he first went to prison, convicted of aggravated assault after a 1995 gunfight outside a nightclub in Cusseta where a man was killed.
“Some guys jumped on me, we got to fighting with them,” he said. “When we were trying to leave, they started shooting at us, so we started shooting back. I think like five got shot and one died.”
He served five years, and learned how to survive in prison.
“Young people, if you go to prison, in your early 20s or in your teens, you’re going to have to hit. ‘Hit’ means fight, because they’re pretty much going to make you be in this gang, or just kind of test you to see where you at,” he said.
When he got out, he went back to the life he’d led before.
At age 27, he was running a recording studio when Columbus’ Metro Narcotics Task Force raided his home, finding a quarter pound of marijuana and $60,000 cash. He was convicted of possession with the intent to distribute, and sentenced to 10 years with two to serve.
He soon decided prison was not where a family man his age ought to be.
“The second time around, even though the time was shorter, it was way worse, for the simple reason I had a family,” he said. “I had a wife, children, four boys and a girl, and it was totally different the second time around because I missed my family so much.”
When again he walked free, he knew he had to make a change. But life for an ex-con wasn’t easy.
Changes
He went back to working in a recording studio, and started gaining weight from sitting down all day and eating Philly cheese steak sandwiches, hot wings and fries, with supersized sodas. As he put on the pounds, he started having other issues – problems with his marriage and his finances.
“That’s when depression set in,” he said. “My marriage wasn’t working out. Things just weren’t going right.”
He lost the studio when the lease ran out, and switched to working in photography, a venture spurred by his shooting video for recording artists.
He still was struggling when a close friend, David Daniels, stepped in, and bought him a gym membership to Max Fitness on Airport Thruway, where Flowers started working out, and took to it.
His weight had hit around 300 pounds. He lost 100 in a year, and then 50 more. For his 45th birthday in July 2018, he set a goal of weighing only 10 pounds more than he did in high school: 173.
He made it, and threw a big party to celebrate: “That’s what got me into training. That was three years ago,” he recalled. “That was the catalyst for 4.0 Fitness. … I just started getting clients after that.”
Now he’s focused on running the gym he opened in March, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and on his photography.
And on getting other people to vote, particularly ex-felons like him.
“I would say this to any convicted felon who’s done his time, and is able to vote: It’s your right to vote, and it’s also your duty to vote,” he said. “The politicians and lawmakers whose lives are going to affect your community, you need to have a say-so in who that person is, and you do that by voting.”
For younger folks who know him now as “Coach T-Flo,” he hopes to be an example:
“I’ve been tied to the streets of Columbus since my youth, and hopefully somebody who comes behind me can say, ‘If Coach T-Flo can do it, I know I can do it.’”