Bryan Stevenson
speaker
1,245 appearances
5 recordings
3 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard 3 Jul
Bryan Stevenson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And the world is just filled of stories about hopeful people.
And I think we need to learn them and be shaped by them.
And I hope we prepare people to be better informed, better citizens, better stewards of the opportunities we have to create a more just world.
I think if you embrace compassion as a way of life, it will make you feel strong and And it will make you feel beautiful. And we underestimate the power of feeling beautiful as a human being and strong as a human being. And for me, embracing compassion, letting it guide us,
As we encounter people, as we navigate complex and difficult situations, as we try to overcome heartbreak and a lot of the things that just happen in life, when we lead with compassion, I just think there's a beautiful return on that approach. And it certainly has affirmed me, and I've seen it inspire people as well.
I want them to know that justice matters, that how we treat one another matters. My work and the work of the Equal Justice Initiative is about doing justice for people who are experiencing injustice. It's about valuing mercy as a way to recover from harm and hardship. And I'm persuaded that a more just world is a more beautiful world.
A more just world is a world with less conflict and division and strife. It's a world with more love. And so my work is really about trying to increase the justice quotient in our nation and have everybody experience the beauty of justice. What does that mean to you? Like, what does the word justice mean? I think justice is a constant struggle. It's not a destination. It's not a fixed place.
It's the way we navigate the inevitable conflicts and divisions that come in a world where there's a hierarchy of power. Some people have less power than other people. And when people who have less power are harmed or victimized or mistreated, it's hard for them sometimes to have recovery for that. And that's injustice.
And for people who have more power, it's important to appreciate the power you have and the obligation you have to use that power to make sure other people aren't being harmed any more than is necessary. And so for me, justice is this navigation of how we move through the world, when there's difference, when there's not equality, and how we recover from harm and wrongdoing and abuse.
It's something that I think essentially is the constant struggle we have to commit to. Just like a relationship is not something you can say, I've got a relationship and now you're done. It requires... nurturing. It requires give and take. It requires questioning. It requires checking in. I mean, injustice is in many ways the same way. We have to constantly be thinking about, was that just?
Was that right? Is this the best we can do? Is there something that's fairer? Is there something that's going to lead to a better outcome than what we've done?
You know, I think for me, for a long time, when someone did something remarkable to express their sorrow and regret, I used to think that's when they deserve mercy. And that's when we should perhaps give them a second chance because they're demonstrating so much remorse and regret. What I now believe is that mercy isn't something that is dependent on what someone else does.
I think it's dependent on who we are. I think we should give it to people, even when we're not seeing the regret and the remorse that we'd like to see. It's a way of moving through the world. And To want mercy when we make mistakes, I believe, requires us to give mercy when other people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that you don't demand respect and accountability when people do bad things.
It doesn't mean that you let people walk all over you. But it does mean that you're not looking for the worst in others. You're not trying to create a world... of us versus them. You're not trying to build division where you're on one side of the wall and other people on the other side of the wall, and they don't deserve mercy and you do. It's the opposite of that.
It's the way in which we think about tearing down walls, creating less harm, less injury, less misunderstanding by being willing to give as much mercy as we hope people will give us.
Yeah, I think it's the beauty of a journey. You keep learning things. And I represented a man who was intellectually disabled. He asked me to try to prevent his execution. He'd already been through the appeals process.
Even though I knew it would be very hard to stop the execution, you know, we jumped in because our courts have actually banned the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. So I went to the trial judge and said, he's intellectually disabled, you can't execute him. But the trial judge again said, too late, somebody should have filed that motion years ago.
The appellate court said too late. The federal court said too late. And I did the hardest thing I have to do, which is to pick up the phone and talk to this man. I said, I'm so sorry, but I can't stop this execution. And then he did the thing that I dread. He started to cry. He became very emotional. And he was literally sobbing. on the other end of the phone.
And I just gave him space and I was holding the phone. And then he said, please don't hang up, Mr. Stevenson. There's something I want to say to you. I said, of course. And then he tried to say something to me. But in addition to being intellectually disabled, when he got overwhelmed, when he got distraught and challenged.
He had a speech impediment and he would really struggle to get his words out. So he began stuttering terribly. He could not get out a single word. And I was standing there holding the phone and tears were literally running down my face. It was so challenging that my mind wandered.
Showing 1021–1040 of 1,245 · page 52 of 63
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