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Today, we are re-airing one of our favorite episodes.

Bryan Stevenson (founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable among us.

In this episode, Kate and Bryan discuss:

• The hope that motivates Bryan in this slow, sometimes frustrating work of justice
• What it means to be a ‘stonecatcher’ (and why it serves both the one being condemned and the one doing the condemning)
• The power of forgiveness, maybe especially toward those who don’t deserve it

CW: discussion of slavery, lynching, and other racist violence, death row

Looking for the transcript or show notes? Click here.

Find Kate on Instagram or Facebook or X.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Bryan Stevenson, Kate Bowler

Kate Bowler  01:55

Oh hey, oh my gosh, Today it is such a special day. Bryan Stevenson is stopping by our offices. Can I just say that again? Bryan Stevenson is coming to my office here at the everything happens project, and I cannot wait to talk to him. Brian is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. It’s a human rights organization, committing to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment. He works with his incredible team to challenge racial and economic injustice, and to protect the most basic rights for the most vulnerable among us. Brian is just an unbelievable person, and he has an incredible staff. They have won reversals relief, or release from prison for over 135 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row. And he is the author of The New York Times bestselling book, just mercy. You have to read it, It is so stunning. If you’re also just the movie type, It was also adapted into a poignant movie, starring Michael B. Jordan. Brian deserves every lovely award that he’s gotten, which is just about every award and honor an honorary degree for his work and you will absolutely understand why. Okay, I can’t wait to talk to him here goes.

 

Kate Bowler  03:21

Well, I’m here with Bryan Stevenson, he’s the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. And I always want to say ministries feels like a ministry. Both lawyer plausibly living saint, and, and I feel so lucky that we’re doing this today. Well, thank you so much for doing this.

 

Bryan Stevenson  03:38

Well, thank you. I’m thrilled to be here.

 

Kate Bowler  03:42

Sometimes when I hear about people’s account of vocation, they, find their life’s work. Maybe because of like supernatural gifting. There’s they just happen to be excellent at something and then it pulls them in or maybe there’s a moment of undoing and then something crystallizes. And it seems like you were called into this vocation almost by a song.

 

Bryan Stevenson  04:09

No, I think that’s right. I mean, I grew up in a community where most of the adults hadn’t gone to high school, let alone gone to college. And it was this powerful intervention by lawyers into our community that made that community open up to public schools to black kids, because when my dad was a teenager, black kids couldn’t go to the public schools in there. And there were no high schools for black kids and so the expectation even of high school wasn’t something I could see or touch. But I went to high school and I think we were just so kind of energetic and excited to take it all in and we played sports and we did music, and I went to college with that same kind of energy and that same kind of curiosity and I was really focused on the now and not on the later I was a philosophy major and I it was in my senior year that somebody came up to me and said that, you know, nobody’s going to pay you to philosophize when you graduate from college. And it kind of hit me hard because I hadn’t really thought about it. And I knew a lot of people were continuing education, I love school so I said, well, I’ll do that and I started looking into graduate programs in history, or English or political science. And much to my dismay, I realized that to get admitted to graduate programs in history, English or political science, you have to know something about history, English, or political science, but I didn’t really feel like I did. And I kept looking and to be honest, that’s really how I found my way to law school, because it was clear to me, you don’t need to know anything to go to law school. And I ended up at Harvard Law School with that mindset but I knew I wanted to do something about inequality and injustice and the poor and racial bigotry. And I was really frustrated because it didn’t seem like anybody was talking about that I was not well informed. I’d never met a lawyer before I got to Harvard Law School. But I had these aspirations. And after the first year, I was so disillusioned, I actually left and I went to the School of Government to pursue a degree in public policy, because I thought that would be more fulfilling. And I remember the day two months into that program, when I woke up when I looked in the mirror, and I thought, wow, I’m even more miserable here than I was at the law school. And it seemed as if they were teaching us to maximize benefits and minimize costs. But it didn’t matter whose benefits got maximized and whose costs got minimized. And I found that alienating, went back to the law school, and then took this course that did send me to the Deep South, and eventually led me to a place that I felt very intimidated by death row in Georgia. And I was just supposed to tell someone that they weren’t at risk of execution, anytime in the next year. And I was so nervous and so overwhelmed when they finally brought this condemned man into the room. I remember he was burdened with chains. He had handcuffs on his wrist, he had a chain around his waist shackles on his ankles, and I just was just overwhelmed by the visual of it. And when they had him on chain, I forgot everything I just started apologizing. So I’m so sorry, I’m just a law student. I don’t know anything about the death penalty I don’t know anything about criminal procedure, appellate procedures, civil procedure. And then I remember I said, but I am here to tell you that you’re not at risk of execution anytime in the next year. And that’s when this man grabbed my hand. And he said, wait, say that, again, I said, you’re not at risk of execution anytime in the next year. I meant to wait, say that again, and I said, you’re not at risk of execution anytime in the next year. And that’s when this man hugged me, and said, thank you. He said, you are the first person I’ve met and the two years I’ve been on death row who’s not a death row prisoner or death row guard, he’s because of you. I’m going to see my wife, I’m going to see my kids, I’ve been talking to them on the phone, but I haven’t let them come and visit. Because I was afraid they’d show up, and I’d have an execution date. And I didn’t want them to have to deal with that. And it really blew me away that just being in that place, I could have an impact on the quality of someone’s life, even though I didn’t know very much. And it just seemed like a special place where I felt for the first time like being in the legal profession might empower me to do something. And then we started talking. Turned out we were exactly the same age had the same birthday, same month, same day, same year, one hour turns into two hours, two hours turned into three hours, and I was only supposed to be there for an hour. But I just kept talking and we were just lost in conversation and then the guards came in after three hours angry that I hadn’t ended the visit when I was supposed to. And they took it out on this man threw him against the wall, pulled his arms back, put the handcuffs on his wrist tightly wrap the chain around his waist violently put the shackles on his ankles. And I remember begging them to be gentler saying, look, it’s my fault. It’s not his fault, he didn’t do anything wrong and they were shoving him toward the door. And I just felt so terribly, and then I remember how he planted his feet when he got in front of the door. And when they shoved him, he didn’t move. And then he turned around to me and he said, Brian, don’t worry about this, you just come back. And that’s when he closed his eyes and began to sing a hymn. And he started singing, I’m pressing on the upward way new heights on gaming every day, still praying as I’m onward bound and then he said Lord plant my feet on higher ground. And it was just a moment of clarity. Even the guard stopped, and then they recovered and started pushing him down the hallway and you could hear the chains clanging but you could hear this man singing about higher ground and when I heard that men saying that’s when I knew I wanted to help condemned people get to higher ground but I also knew that my journey to higher ground was tied to his journey. And I realized that if he doesn’t get there, I don’t get there and it just changed everything. I went back to Harvard Law School you couldn’t get me out of the Law School. library I needed to know everything. I was deep into understanding the jurisprudence necessary to help condemned prisoners learning comedy and federalism and appellate procedure and habeas corpus and all of these doctrines for me, something I had to do. And today even Psalm 35, almost 40 years later. I really do believe when people, you know, if someone asked me well, how have you helped people or how I tell them, it’s not because I’ve worked hard, it’s not because I’m smarter or anything like that. I really do believe it’s because I heard a condemned man sing and in that song understood things about the humanity of all of God’s children about the yearning and the need to be an agent of redemption and change and restoration and freedom for all people, and so it did, it came to me in a song. I think that’s an absolutely fair characterization.

 

Kate Bowler  10:55

That’s a perfect, right that word,  location from Brocato.

 

Bryan Stevenson  11:01

Yes.

 

Kate Bowler  11:01

To be called.

 

Bryan Stevenson  11:02

Yes.

 

Kate Bowler  11:04

Sung into purpose.

 

Bryan Stevenson  11:05

Yeah, and I think we underestimate the things that we can hear that can summon us to places that we need to go. You know, my one of the most formative people in my life was my grandmother, who was the daughter of people who were enslaved. And my family came from Caroline County, Virginia. And when I was a child, my grandmother took me there one time, and I remember she made me put on my best suit. And she said, we’re going to go someplace, and she got me ready and she did the whole thing. She was licking her fingers and wiping my face and get everything. And so I thought we were going someplace really nice and we started walking down a road that became a dirt road. And then we started walking through a field and I remember it being really confusing, because we were dressed for walking through a field. And then we got to the shack, and she stopped me, she said, we’re gonna go inside, and you’re going to hear something. I said, Okay and we went inside, the shack was empty. And I didn’t hear anything. And I remember standing there watching my grandmother waiting to hear something. And then I remember seeing my grandmother cry. And I’ve never seen her cry before. And because she was crying, and I didn’t hear what I was supposed to hear. I started crying, my grandmother took me outside, I said, Mama, why were you crying? And she said, Oh, don’t worry about that. And then I said, Mom, I didn’t hear anything. She said, oh, yes, you did. And I think I cried some more, because I think I missed with it. And I forgot all about that until many years later, when I was doing a paper in college and I went to interview my grandmother spent like three hours asking her all these questions. And at the end of it, she seemed frustrated with me. She said, you asked me all those questions but you didn’t ask me about that time I took you to Bowling Green, and I just didn’t remember it. Honestly, I said, I’m sorry I was supposed to ask you about that she said, yes. I took you to a house, but I didn’t tell you what that house was. It was a shack, but I didn’t explain what it was. And then I said, well, what was it? She said, I took you to the shack, where my father was born. And when in slavery, and when I was a little girl used to take me there all the time and you’d say sit here, Victoria and just listen and see what you can hear. And I, I was moved by but I didn’t fully appreciate it. Really even until many, many years later, we started doing work on slavery. We started doing work on lynching, we started to build these sites in montgomery and I remember being overwhelmed one day, and I go down to the Alabama River, which is like 100 meters from my office. Sometimes I just sit there, and because I’ve been doing this research, I knew that the river was the place where 1000s of enslaved people were brought by boat and I was sitting there and I started thinking about my grandmother and I started thinking about that story she told me and then all of a sudden it did, for the first time seemed like I could hear the sounds of the enslave being trafficked. And we’ve been doing so much work about lynching, and I started imagining what it would sound like to be surrounded by such hatred and bigotry. And I started thinking about growing up at the end of Jim Crow and hearing parents and adults make those sounds of indignation because they’d see these signs that said, white and colored in the dehumanizing and humiliating architecture that they live through. And then I thought about the sounds I hear when I go into prisons, which can be just so rooted in grief and suffering, and I was kind of hearing that. And then all of a sudden, the sounds began to evolve, it wasn’t just the sounds of people enslaved and lynched and segregated and imprison, expressing their grief and their pain and their suffering. It was also the sound of people who were committed to struggle committed to survive committed to find a way passing on something to people like me, to their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. And it felt like another colleague, and it really has animated the work we’ve done in Montgomery to create these cultural South’s beautiful.

 

Kate Bowler  24:23

And there’s a metaphor you might really like them. It was in a book I read recently. It was Jeremy Begbie, and he was talking when you are describing the like beautiful sonar connectedness where one person’s humanity that becomes your humanity. Yeah. And then the truth rings through both. Yeah. He was describing Jeremy Begbie is like an amazing musician. He’s also theologian and you say well, we always use these spatial relationships for people and the way we relate more of me less of you or of God. And if we if we imagine a sonar metaphor, there is no then we’re all more or less like objects displacing one another and then more like tuning for Yeah. Where? One like a note rings, and then you feel the truth of it. And sometimes when we’re in the great joy of getting to learn other people’s stories, my producer best friend, Jess and I always talk about like flicking the cord, you feel it ring, and we’re like, does it pass that?

 

Bryan Stevenson  25:33

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Kate Bowler  25:35

I love that love the like, endless ring amount of other people’s pain. And then, and then what it requires of us?

 

Bryan Stevenson  25:44

Yeah, I think we’re surrounded by so many opportunities to hear the things we need to hear to see the things we need to see. To feel the things we need to feel even in places where we don’t expect them, like on death row, or at an empty river, or an abandoned dwelling that was inhabited by enslaved people and I feel like I’ve been really fortunate, blessed that people and places have at times been spaces where I can find truth and encouragement and knowledge and peace.

 

Kate Bowler  26:23

Your reasons to for choosing Alabama after law school, it made me think of when the guy has as a historian, I love maps. And I love maps of empires, because when you see moments of disruption and revolution, you can always there’ll be like a flare, and it’s almost like it shows to you like a crack in the world. And where, especially in like, almost like tectonic plates like that the failure of an ideal shows you like the brokenness and way that you could never see if you were, you know, in the middle of Rome. Sounds like you were you chose, if you were gonna, like lay out a map of of the inequality that you were about to sort of see all the layers of the justice system, you could spatially pinpoint, Alabama.

 

Bryan Stevenson  27:13

You know, it’s a really interesting way to think about it, because I, I think you’re absolutely right, I didn’t even fully appreciate it. I mean, I knew that in 19, and the 19, late 1980s, there were no public defenders in Alabama, that people were literally dying for legal assistance. In 1989, a quarter of the executions in the United States took place in Alabama, and there were no institutional resources. And so I knew that something had to be done I had been, you know, working for three or four years. And so I said, I’ll go and, and, but as I, as I continued to work there, this consciousness about the map about the centrality of that space, as part of this larger story of injustice and inequality, and oppression and abuse, it became clearer and clearer and clearer to me. And I do think there is a story there that has informed the work that that we continue to do. Most people don’t really appreciate that the domestic slave trade which shaped the American south in the 19 century, was different than the transatlantic slave trade the abducting of Africans, and putting them on boats and traffic them across the sea. There was a port in Charleston, but most of those people were traffic to the north or the Mid Atlantic it’s only at the end of the 19th century that we see this movement of enslaved people from the mid Atlantic states and the north to the deep South. And states like Alabama, weren’t states until 1820, Mississippi, these were all jurisdictions that didn’t even have status until the 19th century. And Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee and Arkansas had rich fertile land. And these white landowners came into this region and they needed enslave, so hundreds of 1000s of people were trafficked to the deep south and Montgomery became one of those hubs, you know, that slave population of Alabama went from 40,000 in 1820 to 400,000 1860s. That’s a huge increase in a span of 40 years and so they were all coming into this space, literally down the street from my office. And then after emancipation, was also the place where there was this violent resistance to a quality and to the lynchings and terror and the violence that was used to sustain Jim Crow and segregation was very resonant in that place. And then, of course, a century later, it was Rosa Parks and Dr. King and Joan Robinson, and Claudette Colvin and John Lewis and other amazing people who got together and felt called to challenge us in the Montgomery Bus Boycott started, you know, the civil rights movement that led to so many things. Dangerous in American society. And so it is a powerful place. And when you understand that history, you begin to understand and where you’re standing. And I do think there’s real value and understanding the map, where we live the space where we live the history of where we live, because it tells a powerful story. And sometimes we’re really important part of that story.

 

Bryan Stevenson  27:35

So you’re now a historians best friend. As a resident, it’s always a strange moment when I realized the when of the horrible truth, the truth of our of our education. But what were the first sort of radical disparities that you learned about the justice system that felt more glaring in Alabama perhaps you’d seen before?

 

Bryan Stevenson  30:55

I mean, I think it became very clear to me early on, that our system treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent, that it was wealth, not culpability, that was going to be the biggest factor and what was going to happen. And that was disappointing to me, because that’s not what we were taught in law school, and people had been silent about that reality. And because I was representing people who were poor, I knew that it wasn’t going to be enough just to kind of make this effort, we were going to have to talk about these structures and systems, their disadvantage our clients. And then, of course, the race stuff was very evident. You know, it just seemed like, every time I was in court, I and my client were the only black people there. And none of the decision makers were ever black I mean, the prosecutors would exclude black people from serving on juries, or the prosecutors were white, or the judges were white. And they weren’t troubled by the absence of diversity in fact, they were counting on it, to maintain the kind of status quo to maintain in their minds of glorious past, where I saw our rific past a past of violence and terrorism, and inequality and injustice. And so that conflict between those who are trying to preserve the past, and those of us who desperately need it, the past to become something different, was a whole kind of extra legal aspect to the work that I was doing. And of course, it played out in the case as it played out in the rulings. I always sensed that people didn’t want to be proudly unjust, I always sensed that people thought what they were doing was not an injustice. But they were so kind of distracted and blinded by so many of these practices that they, they were allowed to think that even though it was so patently unjust to me, you know, and I think those moments were always powerful moments for me when when something happened that got people to look a little more carefully.

 

Kate Bowler  33:20

Yeah, it is so strange to the role of I mean, maybe it’s true of the good things, too we don’t love in general, we only love in particular, the story of one particular death row inmate and his obvious. obvious to you immediately, in a sense was sort of galvanized I wonder if you could, tell the story of, Walter McMillon.

 

Kate Bowler  33:44

Courage of […] witness.

 

Bryan Stevenson  33:44

Yes, exactly.

 

Bryan Stevenson  33:44

Sure, yeah well, I mean, he was one of several people I met he was convicted and sentenced to death in Monroeville, Alabama, which is the home of Harper Lee’s where she grew up in erode the great novel to lill a Mockingbird in that community. After some pushback, initially embrace the story and so when you go to Monroeville, it’s like a shrine to kill a mockingbird. All the streets are named after characters they put on a play every year, everybody takes great pride in being associated with that story. And I met Mr. McMillan who insisted on his innocence. I read the record, it became really clear to me that they had not proved his guilt and then I met his family, started talking to people, and then I was absolutely persuaded of his innocence and we just started fighting and I thought we could just explain to people that he was with his family 15 miles away. […] probably can’t know this. You didn’t know this, but he was actually with 30 people at his home, raising money for the church when this crime took place a letter miles away. All of them were with him. They all know he’s innocent. You need to respond to this and allow him to go and instead of it reacting to that with shame and horror, they were like, nope, not going to do that and they just pushed even harder, you know, to get him executed. And I think the struggle was illuminating that it was so obvious that he was innocent. And yet they were so committed to maintaining his guilt, it became clear to me that this wasn’t about guilt or innocence, this was about power and using power to kind of advance these long existing narratives about who’s dangerous and who’s not and it was it was a challenging case in a lot of ways but it was also a powerful case, because I saw the community come together, and people find their voice and find their courage and find their strength and when we finally went to court, I mean, the courtroom was packed full of black folks and people, poor people, poor white people who had come he had worked with, and they were they’re looking for justice. And that, for me, was really exciting you know, the intensity of the hearing. You know, I wrote about after the first day, the prosecutors were mad that the courtroom had been filled with so many people of color and supporters of Mr. McMillan. So the next day, they didn’t let his people come in. And they change the courtroom around, they put a metal detector inside the courtroom door that you had to walk through and then they position this huge German Shepherd Dog, you have to walk past to get inside the courtroom. And they were telling black folks, so you can’t come and you can’t come in, and when I got there, I went to go into the courtroom and the deputy so you can’t come in. I said, well, I’m the defense attorney, I think I have to be able to come in is that let me check and he ran in came back as well you can come in and they filled the court half filled the court with people who were supportive of the state and I was really angry, and I walked through this metal detector in a position this huge German Shepherd dog had to walk past to get into the courtroom, complained to the judge judge didn’t do anything. And I went outside and explained to the black community and the leaders that they had done something really unfair, but we’ll get we’ll get this sorted out for tomorrow. And they said fine, and they started identifying people to occupy the few seats that were left, and they identified this older black woman named Miss Williams. And she was so honored to be identified as a representative. And I was inside when they finally started letting people come in and I saw this beautiful older black woman walk through the doors of that courtroom with such dignity and such grace. And she held her head up high and she walked through the metal detector but when she got in front of the dog, you could see the fear just paralyzed her, and she stood there and her body started to tremble and shake and then I saw tears running down her face, and then I heard her groan loudly and watched her turn around and run out the courtroom. Other people came inside we had a good day in court I’ve sort of forgotten about her until I was walking to my car that evening. And when I was walking outside, she was sitting outside and she came over when she saw me she says Mr. Stevenson, I feel so bad. I said, Oh, Ms. Williams, don’t you worry about what they did? She says no, I was supposed to be in that courtroom I was meant to be in that courtroom I should have been in that courtroom and have failed as Ms. Williams please don’t feel bad they shouldn’t have done what they did she says no. I let everybody down today and I just feel that she started crying.I said please don’t worry about as misjudged, she’s no, I was meant to be in that courtroom she said, well, when I saw that dog, all I could think about where those protests were they put those dogs on the side thought about Selma 1965. And she walked away with just tears running down her face I felt terribly. And her sister told me the next morning that when she got home, she didn’t talk to anybody she didn’t say anything, but they could hear her praying all night long. And she was praying Lord, I can’t be scared I know doll. And the next morning she called the ministers and said she wanted another chance to be a representative and on the trip from the house to the courthouse, her sister said she kept saying, I ain’t scared no dog ain’t scared no dog. And I was inside the courtroom the next day when when they open the door and there was Ms. Williams and you can hear her saying audibly, I am scared to know, oh, she walked through the door and to walk through the metal detector, and she walked up to that dog and she said, I ain’t scared and no dog and she walked past the door and sat down on the front row of the courtroom and she looked at me she said Mr. Stevenson, I’m here. Waves it’s good to see you, and then I started working on my papers and then a few minutes later, she said no, Mr. Stevenson, you didn’t hear me? She said, I’m here and I looked at it. No, I do see you  I’m glad to see you and the judge walked in and everybody stood up when the judge walked in. And then everybody sat back down and I noticed that people were staring and I turned around and Ms. Williams was still standing. And the corium got really quiet. And they were looking at her and that’s when she said one last time she said I’m here. And it became clear to me then she wasn’t just saying I’m physically present, what she was saying is I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black but I’ve got this vision of justice that compels me to stand up to injustice. And I really have come to believe that sometimes the two most important words we can articulate when we’re trying to minister when we’re trying to help when we’re trying to serve when we’re trying to be a friend, when we’re trying to do something hard and difficult. The two most challenging but sometimes the most important words are I’m here. And it is that expression of presence in places that are difficult and challenging. That represents something so much more powerful than a lot of the other words that we can say you don’t always have the answers, you don’t always have the skills you don’t always have the knowledge that you’d like to have. But if you have the willingness to be present, it’s amazing what you can do.

 

Kate Bowler  40:55

Like I will put my toes, you roll them around.

 

Bryan Stevenson  40:59

Yeah, that’s right.

 

Kate Bowler  41:00

Well, stare it down.

 

Bryan Stevenson  41:01

That’s right.

 

Kate Bowler  41:02

That is an intense. I love and that is it is a beautiful thing to be near.

 

Bryan Stevenson  41:07

Yes, indeed.

 

Kate Bowler  41:08

You are.

 

Bryan Stevenson  41:10

Exactly yeah, absolutely.

 

Kate Bowler  41:14

There’s a kind of witnessing that it changes. When you describe when you describe the grind of like, the inhumanity of all of the horrible bits, like the way that moving through the process can like strip away the feeling. That that man got back when he sang. I think the thing that surprises me so much is when there’s still a incredible capacity to love. And I and that may be even in the more you’re in a broken system. If some beautiful magic of the Holy Spirit happens. You can you’re able to continue to love but maybe it changes who you love, you’re witness right? If any of this book I read recently, she was a friend of the podcast, her name was Sarah Sentilles. She wrote this beautiful book called stranger care, right, that legal I think term of course, you know, where you can raise a child that is not your blood? And she was talking about the brokenness of the foster care system, it’s a lovely account. But she was talking about the the people thought that the miracle was that she was going to raise a child that wasn’t hers. And when she’s and that, you know, as she’s moving through the horror of the pain of endless fracture everywhere, the wearing down, and then the desire then to demonize all of the people, especially those who continue to hurt you in the midst of the system. And she said, she thought the miracle wasn’t loving the baby whose love was like lightning in her heart. But it was that she could somehow possibly learn to love that child’s mom. And then those foster care workers who she those participating in systems that perpetuated broken. When I, when I read and see you, I think there’s something about the transformation of then who we decide is worthy of love, that feels like it goes directly up against this experience actually being in the system in the first place.

 

Bryan Stevenson  43:31

Yeah, no, I think that’s exactly right. You know, I read a lot of Reinhold Niebuhr when I was a college student. And I use quotes at the beginning of my book, and it’s justice is the instrument. But love is the motive and I do think if our quest for justice, as far as desire for justice isn’t rooted in a kind of love of everyone, not just those on whose behalf we’re seeking just for the love of everyone, because I think of in injustice, like a terrible disease, you know, and it’s, it’s an at this kind of infectious kind of toxic thing. And you don’t want anybody burdened by the attributes of that illness. And you’re trying to shield people who are most vulnerable, who are likely to be victimized by the injustice, but you want everyone to be free of this horrific malady that causes you to not see humanity and to see dignity and see personhood and, and to see grace and redemption. And I do think you have to, you have to yearn for a kind of love that you can give to any and everyone it’s.

 

Kate Bowler  44:50

Rosalie indiscriminant.

 

Bryan Stevenson  44:51

It glows firstly, talk about this person I met in my book and when I was won these cases, banning life without parole sentences for children, so I was growing up around the country representing a lot of kids and I was going to New Orleans a lot. Because that had Louisiana had one of the highest rates of child sentencing of to death in prison of any state. And I was back there a lot and kept going to court going to court and I was representing these two people spent nearly 50 years in Angola plantation prison and the state of Louisiana. And there was always this woman in court when I would go there, and she would just watch me and and finally, we got a court to grant relief for this man who is now blind had been in prison for nearly 50 years and it was such a powerful moment, because when she granted relief, there were all of these people in prison in the jury box waiting for their sentencing hearings, and the court was filled with those people, people just actually started to applaud when they heard the story and it was one of those moments. I when I was leaving, we had to wait a couple of hours, get the papers, this woman I’ve seen so often was sitting on the steps, and she called me over. And she told me her story about her son had been murdered. And she’d come to the court a lot to be a part of these proceedings to demand justice and when these young people were finally convicted of this crime, she didn’t feel vindication and justice, she felt just overwhelmed, because she saw their mother sitting in the courtroom, crying, and she said, she just felt compelled to go over to them and put her arm around them and she said for the last I don’t know how many years she said, for years, I come to the courtroom. And I look for people who are just suffering whose hearts have been broken because they’ve lost somebody or because they’re about to lose somebody who’s going off to prisons, and I just, and.

 

Kate Bowler  46:49

Then I just love. I just screwed up next.

 

Bryan Stevenson  46:52

Yeah, that’s right, exactly and then she said to me, she says, I know what you are.

 

Kate Bowler  47:05

It’s always ominous.

 

Bryan Stevenson  47:06

And then she said, you’re a stone catcher, like I am. And we sat down next to each other, and just started talking about, you know, the, the scripture, where Jesus is confronted by those who are ready to condemn the woman who’s been caught in adultery. And they want to trick him and they and they, and they say, you know, tell us what to do, we’re going to the scriptures tell us we should cast stones and kill this woman. And, of course, we read that, you know, Jesus makes marks in the ground, and then very, in a disruptive way, says, you know, we’ll let whoever have you was without sin cast the first stone. And they’re challenged by that convicted by that and they all walk away. And he just has to the woman go and sin no more and what’s powerful for me about that story is that it required a certain amount of consciousness for those who condemn to recognize that they were not without sin, and put down their stones. And that we’ve gotten to a point in our contemporary struggle, where we have made our identity and our religiosity and our, our self righteousness, so much a part of our identity that we don’t have that consciousness, we throw the stones anyway, even though Jesus is still saying let him who is without sin cast the first stone. And I just think that that means that some of us can’t just shake our heads and be outraged by that some of us actually have to position ourselves in front of the condemned in front of those would be the objects of this. And we have to catch those stones. And I want to catch the stones that are thrown at my clients I want to catch the stones that have thrown at children, I want to catch the stone to the throne it people are suffering from trauma and addiction and abuse. And I want to catch them because I don’t want them to be battered and beaten and destroyed by this unjust anger and violence. But I also want to catch them to give those who cast the stones an opportunity for one more chance to hear what we are supposed to hear to be called to what we’re supposed to be called to, which is not condemnation and judgment, but to justice and mercy. And in that respect, I think you’re right it you do have to you have to have a kind of consuming love that gets you to see everybody if if your love is the kind that can only flourish when you blind yourself to these people and their needs and these people and their needs. I just don’t think it’s going to be that kind of love that endures that lifts and transacts

 

Bryan Stevenson  47:50

Does always feel like watching. I used to I spent my 20s studying faith healers, and I know that the feeling of standing there hoping that a thing like the suspension of the laws of gravity. But I think people get that feeling. When they see someone either forgive, they see someone somehow hole they see somewhere give up on a position that they once had, I had the ray Hinton spin on the podcast and that is the miracle feeling of being near him. That is a kind of completeness.

 

Bryan Stevenson  50:35

Absolutely yeah, no Anthony Ray Hinton wrongly accused wrongly convicted wrongly condemned to death for crimes that took place in Birmingham in the 1980s, spent nearly 30 years on death row and Alabama, didn’t talk for the first three years on, he was on death row, because he was just so angry and frustrated and unnerved by what had happened to him. And then he began to find his voice, and just never gave away his hope. It’s a remarkable human being this incredible spirit of joy and spirit of compassion. And I had the great privilege of representing him. And for 16 years we fought and we’d go back and forth, and it was a roller coaster. And sometimes, you know, we’d get an adverse ruling and it was the hardest thing for me to call him up and say, I’am sorry, but the court ruled against us. And even in moments like that, he would often say, you need to take care of yourself, he wouldn’t even comment on you need to go home, and you need to do something nice, and just the kind of spirit he has. And we eventually prevailed and got the case overturned, after going all the way to the US Supreme Court and I remember talking with him, on the morning of his release, because he had to be released in that jail, it said, we’re gonna release him at 9am. I was there at 7:30 so let’s go. I didn’t want him to and they refused to let him out until the nine o’clock so we were back there and I was even mad about that and.

 

Kate Bowler  52:12

Because there’s not enough, you want that extra hour and a half of his lighting, really,

 

Bryan Stevenson  52:16

It’s just, they’ve taken 30 years, if they can’t get back to you, here’s an hour and a half that they could give you. But we were talking and I was still feeling, you know, just provoked by it all and he was telling me that he had been up all night, he says, Brian, I made an important decision I said, what’s that? He says, I’ve decided I have to forgive them for what they did to me. He said, I can’t hate them if I walk out of here hating them, they’ll still have me in prison. Because hatred is a kind of prison. Our unwillingness to forgive creates a kind of constraint on our hearts on our spirit. And you know, he embodies that powerful truth, that powerful freedom, that comes with understanding that without forgiveness, without compassion, without a desire to create space for those who, who’ve harmed us to recover. We don’t ever recover ourselves. And yeah, he’s a beautiful human being.

 

Kate Bowler  53:25

Ask anyone ever to do it but if you ever see it.

 

Bryan Stevenson  53:28

Yeah, absolutely. That’s why in our work, we’re really trying to create this new era of truth and justice, what we say we want. When we invite people to our sites, the museum and the memorial, and this work we’re doing on the race and the history. We want an era of truth telling, because we think that truth telling opens us up to all kinds of things that we will now feel obligated feel motivated to do.

 

Kate Bowler  53:53

Well, of course, there’s an enormous debate right now about public forgiveness, I’m sure you are mired in every day. And then there’s a good often a thick Christian script, and that a tow a totalizing kind of meanness, or just sort of like, feels like it’s just like passing the border and to the to those who have suffered under the weight of the greatest cruelty, and then says carry that too. I never want that. And then of course, there are those where truth only feels like motor weapons, that’s, there’s a seriousness to it. That also accidentally sometimes consumes the things that was that just sort of burns everything.

 

Bryan Stevenson  54:35

Yeah, I think in many ways, we haven’t really seriously investigated what the harms are. And therefore we haven’t really positioned ourselves to thoughtfully talk about what the remedies are.

 

Kate Bowler  54:52

I think that’s why I love all the language of witness. The word requires to have suffered with, to have as opposed to to have casually consumed of lightly peruse the conclusions. This skipping to the end? The genuineness of that kind of.

 

Bryan Stevenson  55:09

Yeah, because I mean, we we’ve gotten good at performative reconciliation and performative apology and performative. And I just think we have to understand why that doesn’t work, because it’s not rooted in, you know, you, you will know that in the health context. Nobody signs up for a painful and difficult treatment, you don’t know and says, Oh, I want chemotherapy. I want radius, yeah but it’s when you get these devastating diagnosis, and you realize that the absence of treatment is going to is going to cause harm or death or whatever, that you begin to kind of think differently about what you have to do. And I think in a lot of ways, we’ve just been silent about so many of the harms created by our history, that we have to engage in this process of dying what did this do so, you know, 6 million black people fled the American south during the first half of the 20th century, they love lands that they own, they left opportunities to build wealth that was there for them, but they had to give it up because of terror and violence, they moved to places like Chicago and Cleveland, in Detroit, where they went not as people looking for new economic opportunities, but as refugees and exiles and when you understand that you think differently about a wealth gap in America today, you think differently about what it means to be isolated in a community where there’s been generation after generation of suffering and disconnection. So all of these things have to be understood if we’re going to actually be effective at creating repair and creating restoration and creating remedy. And I just think that’s always true I mean, one of the things I think we have to embrace we have a culture in America that is very resistant to apology. You know, our politicians never want to say I was wrong.

 

Bryan Stevenson  55:27

No, but there’s the last line it goes, but it made me who I am.

 

Bryan Stevenson  57:11

Yeah, exactly. And I think that resistance to say, I’m sorry, has really cultivated something very unhealthy. Because people who really love each other people who really care about each other, most of the people I know, who’ve been in loving marriages for 40, or 50 years are people who have learned how to apologize to one another. When they inevitably do something that is harmful that’s not right and it’s that capacity, to apologize to address the heart that sustains the love it’s not, oh, my love is so great that I will never make couldn’t possibly say anything that harms or offends or do anything, ya know, and that’s why we have to learn the geography of apology and to express it when it needs to be expressed and to not fear it, as something that condemns us what it does is it actually helps us acknowledge things and and learn things that that can direct us. But it’s very foreign in our in our society.

 

Kate Bowler  58:19

Please I mean, I’ve the intimacy of forgiveness, and repentance, forgiveness and lament mean there. So I studied the history of positive thinking. And Americans, of course, pioneered and perfected. You can even hear it in an interview where you say something hard, but then your voice has to go. Far to it’s, you know, and then like all that’s the sweetness of those minor notes that we have to play for people to hear the whole song. Every time I tread into the deep waters of talking about forgiveness, one of the first especially for people who have suffered there’s an immediate desire to know if people really deserved it. And the deserve language is such like, let me pre know. And I made me think of this conversation. I had one time with some man named Philip Yancey. And he wrote a lovely memoir. It’s beautiful title where the light fell. He wrote his whole life about grace, because and the thing he hadn’t told was the that his family had been consumed by unforgiveness, like each person in in hope in desperation, or cannibalizing the other right and tells the story of his grandfather, who really who had done terrible things. And in the delusion and confusion of his final year on Earth had imagined that his daughter had finally forgiven him and last, and clutched his granddaughter instead, and tears are streaming down his face and he said, you’ve come back to me, and he writes, he was hallucinating grace. When I read the story, I was struggling with the questions because I knew I couldn’t say, well, this man deserves to be, you live, you have to help people understand the complicated web of fighting for people where they don’t have to pass the deserve tests.

 

Bryan Stevenson  1:00:49

Yes, I mean, I think it’s such an important frame, at least, for me, you know, the biblical injunction that the prophet Micah says is, you know, God requires of us that we do justice. And we love mercy, and walk humbly. And there’s no deserve language. It doesn’t say do justice for those who deserve justice. love mercy for those who deserve its do justice. love, mercy, period. love, mercy, and walk humbly. And the humbly thing is important, too and people skip over that sometimes. Because in many ways, the thing that gets in the way of doing justice and loving mercy is sometimes its pride. It’s this fear of what it means to be someone who is just when anger and indignation seems like it’s more appropriate, it’s merciful, when vengeance and retribution seems more appropriate. And that’s where the humility of appreciating that we’re all capable of harming and healing we’re all capable of offending and being offended is so important. But yes, I think mercy isn’t really mercy until we give it to the undeserving. You know, forgiveness isn’t really forgiveness. If it’s not surrounded by some objective assessment that this is undeserved it because otherwise, you’re just giving someone what they are doing is cutting your taxes. That’s exactly right. And I think I think what’s powerful in the writings of people like Mr. Yancey, and so many of the other folks is that they they explore the multiple ways in which those who suffer I mean, when you suffer a lot, it can distort your capacity, to be generous to be kind to become because you’re so weighed down by the injury by the harm by the pain that you’re dealing with. You know, we expect grace and tenderness from those who suffer when in fact, we should expect less but it and so when you find a way to despite all of that to express something that sounds like compassionate sounds like I went to Africa for the first time, not that long ago, and I missed I was supposed to be in Abuja, in Nigeria, and I miss my connection in Lagos and they had the young lawyer beat me it was like midnight, and they said, Oh, he’s gonna take care of you and get you to the airport tomorrow morning a young lawyer, beautiful young man, he was just so enthusiastic. And he says, I’m to take you all around and, I was really tired, I said, what, okay, and he took me through the streets of Lagos, and we were out and he was telling everybody, this is lawyer from America. And these women were coming out and they were trying to sell me shea butter because they didn’t think I had what I needed. And they were bringing out all of these people and he showed me love we were going everywhere and I find this Oh, man, this is so wonderful but I’m really tired, and I’ve got to give a speech tomorrow morning up there. He finally said, okay, one more place to take you and we went down to the to the coast. And it was just kind of not very impressive. A lot of, you know, American. I remember Pizza Hut and all these kinds of fast food places and the rocks, concrete boulders, and we climbed over them. And then there was the coast, it wasn’t beautiful it was just dark, but it was the ocean. And we got down there. And I stood there and he stood there. And I noticed that he got really quiet. And then I looked over and I saw a tear running down his face and he turned to me and he said, well, I wanted to bring you here so I could say I’m sorry. This is where we lost you and for the first time I realized we’re standing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in a place of my ancestors record Hang with the fact that I had been stolen. And this young man had the presence of mind to feel some culpability to feel the weight of having not been so.

 

Kate Bowler  1:05:13

You felt founded in that moment.

 

Bryan Stevenson  1:05:15

And I still wet black.

 

Kate Bowler  1:05:18

Hadn’t prepared.

 

Bryan Stevenson  1:05:25

But it just it’s extraordinary how you sometimes have within us the ability yes to show forgiveness and mercy and grace and you know, he took me to his house and his young little kid who was so excited so you’re gonna sleep on my little area, and he wanted to talk and he went, and I had all of a sudden all of this energy. And I think I was up all night and it was beautiful, it was extraordinary. It is the thing I remember most about that trip.

 

Kate Bowler  1:05:59

Oh, my word. Well, look, you profit of hope.

 

Kate Bowler  1:06:07

I love the way we are found in each other’s efforts. And in each other’s pain. And it is so beautiful to see you pour yourself into the world.

 

Kate Bowler  1:06:20

Thank you, my friend.

 

Bryan Stevenson  1:06:21

Oh you’re very welcome, thank you, my honor.

 

Kate Bowler  1:06:33

Wow, what an amazing person, right? It’s like what a privilege. And also you might have years. This is an incredible community of people who understand what it feels like to be delicate, and to be in delicate systems. And when we are in these broken systems, or being squeezed by them, crushed under them somehow, or working with long, long patients to fix them. It somehow changes who we love. Have you felt that it’s suddenly we find ourselves our hearts pulled toward the vulnerable and the sick, and the ones who could use a second chance. Our hearts crack open to see others who are also experiencing the weight of systems are too large for them to shoulder alone. So I thought maybe we could close with a blessing from Jessica and is the new book of blessings, which is called the lives we actually have. And it’s a blessing for anyone who is tired of broken systems. Okay, here goes. Oh God, I am done with broken systems that break the very people they are meant to serve, harness this anger, channel it into worthy action and show me what is mine to fix and what boundaries to patrol to keep goodness in an evil out. Bless it are we who are appalled that brute ignorance can so easily dominate over decency, honesty, and integrity. Blessed are we who choose not to look away from systems that dehumanize deceive, defame and distort. We recognize that thoughts and prayers are not enough. We who stand with truth over expediency, principle over politics, community over competition. Oh god, how blessed are we who cry out to you. empower us to see a name what is broken. What is ours to restore? Guide us to find coherent and beautiful alternatives that foster life, hope and peace. Help us use our gifts with one another in unity. Bless it are we who choose to live in anticipation, our eyes scanning the horizon for signs of your kingdom. Heaven come down as we wait and hope and act with courage. Bless you, my dears, have an absolutely beautiful week. But oh wait, before I go. I wanted to let you know that our new book comes out in February. That’s the one that’s the book of blessings called the lives we actually have. And the point is that it is meant to do the work of actual blessing, which is to say not wait for your perfect day not wait till something good happens to say something spiritual, but to bless all of our real imperfect, sometimes garbage, sometimes lovely days. And if you preorder a copy, you can get a free pennant. It’s like an eight by 18 inch felt pennant. Kind of like the kind you would get for college. And it’s so cute and you can hang it in your office or your living room. And it says, bless the lives we actually have. If you’re interested, just go to Kate bowler.com/blessings book to learn more. A really special thank you goes to our generous partners who make this work possible. Lilly Endowment, the Duke Endowment, Duke Divinity School and leadership education and to my incredible team Jessica Ritchie, Harriet Putman. When Higginbotham, Brenda Thompson, Keith Weston, Jeb and Sammy thank you. And I’d really love to hear what you loved about this episode. Would you do me a favor and leave a review on Apple podcasts or on Spotify? It really really means a lot to us when we get to hear what we do well, and maybe even what we could do better. You can also leave us a voicemail and who knows, we might be able to use your voice on the air. Call us at 919-322-8731 I’ll talk to you next week. And in the meantime, come find me online at Katie Butler. This is Everything Happens with me Kate Bowler.