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
He said, you're the first person I've met in the two years I've been on death row who's not a death row prisoner or death row guard. He said, I've been talking to my wife and kids, but I haven't let them come and visit because I was afraid I'd have an execution date and I don't want them to have to deal with that. He said, now because of you, I'm going to see my wife, I'm going to see my kids.
And I couldn't believe how even in my ignorance, just being proximate, could have an impact on the quality of someone's life. That man and I, it turned out, were exactly the same age. We had the same birth date, same month, same day, same year. He started asking me questions about my life. I asked him questions about his life. And we just fell into this conversation.
And I forgot I was a law student. I forgot he was a condemned person on death row. We were just two people talking. And the visit was only scheduled for an hour, but we kept talking. I just lost track of time. And one hour turned to two hours, two hours turned to three hours. The guards were waiting for me to finish. And after three hours, they got angry and they couldn't take it anymore.
So they came bursting into the room and they grabbed this man and they threw him against the wall. They pulled his arms back. They put the handcuffs on his wrist really tightly. They wrapped the chain around his waist. They were treating very roughly. They put the shackles back on his ankles and I begged them to be gentler. I said, look, it's not his fault. It's my fault.
He didn't do anything wrong, but they ignored me. Then they started shoving this man toward the door, really pushing him. And it upset me. I said, please, you don't have to do that. He didn't do anything wrong, but they ignored me. And they got that man near the door, and I'll never forget how when he got near the door, he planted his feet.
And when they tried to shove him through the door, he didn't move. And then he turned to me and he looked at me and he said, Brian, don't worry about this. You just come back. And then he did this thing I'll never, ever forget. I stood there and I watched him close his eyes. throw his head back, and then he started to sing. And he started singing this hymn.
He started singing, I'm pressing on the upward way, new heights I'm gaining every day, still praying as I'm onward bound. And then he said, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. Everybody stopped. And then the guards recovered and they started pushing him down the hallway. And you could hear the chains clanging as they pushed him down the hallway.
But you could hear this condemned man singing about higher ground. And when I heard that song, when I heard him sing, that's when everything changed for me. That was the moment that I knew. I wanted to help condemned people get to higher ground. But I also knew at that moment that my journey to higher ground was going to be tied to his journey.
And when I went back to Harvard Law School, I was completely changed. You couldn't get me out of the law school library after that because I needed to know everything about federalism and comedy and appellate procedure and criminal procedure and habeas corpus and all of the procedural doctrines. I needed to become a master of the law. because I wanted to help condemned people get to higher ground.
And now, 40 years later, sometimes people say, well, how have you helped all these people get relief? How have you won these cases at the Supreme Court? And I know they want me to say it's because I'm hardworking, we try to be smart, we try to be tactical. And we do try to be tactical and smart and work hard. But the truth is, is that if I've helped anybody get
During my 40 years as a lawyer, it's not because I'm hardworking or smart or tactical. It's because I got close enough to a condemned man to hear his song. And I believe that there are songs still being sung in jails and prisons all across this country. I think in places where there's poverty and despair and oppression, there are songs still being sung.
And when we get close enough to hear those songs... Those melodies teach us something about what being human is about. They teach us something about what justice is about. And I think we should get proximate, not just to help other people, I think we should get proximate to help ourselves.
Because it's been the greatest gift that someone could give to me, to be in the midst of justice and condemnation, to stand next to the condemned and the hated and disfavored, and to see the power of love create something beautiful, which is what happens sometimes. When we are committed to proximity, when we're committed to seeing the humanity and dignity of every human being.
I do believe that when we are proximate to the poor, to the excluded, to the marginalized, we hear things we won't otherwise hear. We see things that we won't otherwise see. And I don't think it's just the way we deal with poverty and injustice. I think in life. To be a good leader, to be a good parent, to be a good teacher, we have to be close to the people we are trying to serve.
We have to understand what they're seeing, what they're hearing. And when we're distant, we can't do that as well.
We judge. To get proximate, we have to sometimes choose to get closer to people who are struggling, people who have fallen down previously. problems in the world that need our attention.
We don't shield ourselves from the world's problems, but we have enough character and enough generosity and enough courage that we will actually go places where people are suffering and struggling and help if we can help.
It can feel challenging and exhausting, but it's also really empowering. If we have the ability to catch a stone, to exercise that ability, and to know we're not only helping the person who would have been the target of that violence, but we're also helping the person who threw the stone. Because what they don't realize yet is that to get to redemption, to get to grace, to get to the...
the beloved community that we talk so much about, we can't throw stones at one another because we're angry and afraid. And sometimes people get overwhelmed and they can't remember that, and so they pick the stone up and they throw it.
And I not only want to help the person they're throwing the stone at, but I want to help them have the opportunity to recover from the mistake of harsh judgment, of violent judgment against someone in a way that's less consequential. And You know, one of the things that I'd like to believe is that if you catch one stone, it becomes easier to catch the next one, even though it's bigger.
Showing 1081–1100 of 1,245 · page 55 of 63
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