In
the early 1980s Bryan Stevenson was studying at Harvard Law School and working
on a graduate degree at the Kennedy School of Government. He was not the child
of privilege; he “grew up in a poor, rural, racially segregated settlement” in
Delaware, and the prestigious schools he was attending seemed disconnected from
his deep interest in “America’s history of racial inequality and the struggle
to be equitable and fair with one another.”
Then
he met Steve Bright, director of the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, who
told him: “Capital punishment means ‘them without the capital get the
punishment.” Something connected. Later, “I was in my late twenties and about
to start my fourth year at the SPDC when I met Walter McMillian. … Even though
he had lived in Monroe County his whole life, Walter McMillian had never heard
of Harper Lee or To Kill a Mockingbird.” Walter was on death row in Alabama,
convicted of murder. And he was innocent.
Stevenson’s
efforts on Walter’s behalf stretched over years, and form the backbone of his
riveting account of “Just Mercy: A Story Of Justice And Redemption” ($16 in
paperback from Spiegel and Grau; also for Amazon Kindle). It has been selected
as this year’s Book In Common.
Stevenson
founded the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama and his honors
include a MacArthur “genius” grant.
The
story he tells is bleak. In America, he writes, “incarceration became the
answer to everything—health care problems like drug addiction, poverty that had
led someone to write a bad check, child behavioral disorders, managing the
mentally disabled poor. ….”
But
there is hope through “just mercy.” “Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and
transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t
earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of
our compassion.”
The
Book In Common community kickoff event is Thursday, September 24, from 6:00 –
7:30 p.m. at Chico City Plaza. Chico State University (www.csuchico.edu/bic)
and Butte College (butte.edu/bic) are holding campus activities throughout the
academic year as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment