We Are Better than the Worst Things We’ve Done

We Are Better than the Worst Things We’ve Done

Bryan Stevenson, the New York Times–bestselling author of Just Mercy, has been called America’s Nelson Mandela by Desmond Tutu and Nicholas Kristof. As a civil rights lawyer, he’s liberated more than 100 people from death row, proving their innocence in the process. And as the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, he recently opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, which commemorate lynching, slavery, terrorism against African Americans, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration in this country. They are stunning tributes that compel us to never repeat the worst of our past. Because of our history, Stevenson argues that no one in this country is really free, but he paints a path to a more just society in which we can all confront and overcome racial inequality. It’s a future that Stevenson feels really hopeful about, but not one that will materialize unless we act now.