Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson
Bryan A. Stevensonis an American lawyer, social justice activist, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and a clinical professor at New York University School of Law. Stevenson has gained national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system. Stevenson has assisted in securing relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, advocated for poor people and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActivist
CountryUnited States of America
Bryan Stevenson quotes about
When you come to Montgomery, you see fifty-nine monuments and memorials, all about the Civil War, all about Confederate leaders and generals. We have lionized these people, and we have romanticized their courage and their commitment and their tenacity, and we have completely eliminated the reality that created the Civil War.
Are you the sum total of your worst acts?
I have to get comfortable with resistance, and even sometimes with hostility.
It can be a challenge, but my legacy, at least for the people who came before me, is you don't run from challenges because that's more comfortable and convenient.
Intuitively we all like to seek the things that are comfortable rather than uncomfortable. But I do think there is a way of saying that if I believe in justice and I believe that justice is a constant struggle, and if I want to create justice, then I have to get comfortable with struggle.
I think hopelessness is the enemy of justice.
Knowing what I know about the people who have come before me, and the people who came before them, and what they had to do, it changes my capacity to stay engaged, to stay productive.
We all have a responsibility to create a just society
Whenever society begins to create policies and laws rooted in fear and anger, there will be abuse and injustice.
The Bureau of Justice reports that one in three black male babies born this century will go to jail or prison - that is an absolutely astonishing statistic. And it ought to be terrorizing to not just to people of color, but to all of us.
We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
I don't think there's been a time in American history with more innocent people in prison.
Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.
The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.