On being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation,

harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest and most

perplexing questions facing humankind.

Learn about the latest discoveries in the study of hope and optimism,

intellectual humility, and free will at templeton.org.

How to embrace what is right and corrective,

redemptive and restorative, and an insistence that each of us

is more than the worst thing we've done. These are Gifts Brian Stevenson

offers with his life. He's brought the language of mercy and redemption into

American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer

with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama.

Now the groundbreaking museum they created in Montgomery has dramatically

expanded, a new way of engaging the full and ongoing legacy of slavery in

US history. It is an honor and a pleasure to experience Brian Stevenson's spirit

and his moral imagination towards our need for healing to become a whole society.

We've been dealing with injustice in so many places for so long,

and if you try to dissect why is this still here, it's because people haven't had

enough hope and confidence to believe that we can do something better.

You know, I think hope is our superpower. I mean, hope is the thing that gets you

to stand up when others say sit down. It's the thing to get you to speak

when others say be quiet. I'm Christa Tippett and this is on being.

Brian Stevenson's book, Just Mercy, has been a bestseller for years

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