Bryan Stevenson

And the man said, would it be all right if I just followed you back?

And she said, sure.

And she called me on the way back.

She said, Mr. Stevenson, I want you to come to the museum and meet my new friend.

And I was there when these two people who met on a roadside in a place of bigotry and violence and hate came in together and did something beautiful by putting that jar of soil in that exhibit.

I'm not naive.

I don't think beautiful things like that always happen.

when we tell the truth.

But I do believe we deny ourselves the beauty of justice when we refuse to tell the truth.

On the other side of truth is redemption, restoration, reconciliation.

I don't talk about slavery and lynching and segregation because I want to punish.

I talk about these things because I want us to be liberated from the harm, the burden, the weight that history will continue to carry until we confront it, until we continue to acknowledge it.

And so part of what we're trying to do with these sites is to invite people into a journey of learning that allows us to get to something that feels more like freedom, more like equality, more like justice, which I think is waiting for us.

I do.

I think it's just waiting for us.

All across the globe, I think we have an opportunity to get to something that feels more like freedom, equality, and justice, but we can't get there if we're unwilling to be honest about the harms that hold us back.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

To get proximate, change narratives of fear and anger, be hopeful, and be willing to do uncomfortable and inconvenient things.