Bryan Stevenson: The Power of Mercy and Forgiveness

Oprah's Super Soul

Oprah

Society & Culture

4.6 • 32.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2018

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Oprah sits down with Bryan Stevenson, the law professor, civil rights attorney and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who shares why he has dedicated his life to giving a voice to incarcerated men and women. Bryan has spent more than three decades challenging poverty and racial discrimination within the criminal justice system. He explains why he believes we are not fully evolved as human beings until we care about universal human rights and basic dignity. Bryan has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners and confronting abuse of the incarcerated. Bryan also discusses his New York Times best-selling book, "Just Mercy," his views on the death penalty, and the transformative power of mercy and forgiveness. Next week, be sure to download Oprah's two-part podcast interview with one of Bryan Stevenson's most extraordinary clients, Anthony Ray Hinton, a man who wrongfully spent 30 years on death row until Bryan helped him win his freedom. Anthony's new memoir about his experience in prison, "The Sun Does Shine," was just selected for Oprah's Book Club.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of
0:07.5	the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.
0:16.1	Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right
0:23.1	now.
0:24.6	Brian Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. It's
0:29.7	a nonprofit law firm in Montgomery, Alabama. For more than three decades, Brian has worked
0:35.1	tirelessly to defend those who've been wrongly accused, denied justice or shown no mercy.
0:42.3	The Equal Justice Initiative has one cases for more than 115 unfairly condemned death
0:49.0	row prisoners. Brian's book, Just Mercy, I believe, should be on every bookshelf in America.
0:55.6	It is a revelation. At the core, Brian's work is this shocking fact that we imprison
1:03.1	more people in our country than any other nation on earth. And one in three black men
1:09.7	born in this century is expected to be incarcerated, one in three. This is a defining issue of
1:17.5	our time. Brian believes we are all broken by this injustice and our healing begins with
1:24.5	understanding, with empathy, with compassion and ultimately mercy.
1:32.1	I believe that what you're doing in your work and most recently in your book is that you're
1:39.1	trying to actually speak to the super soul of America. You have a beautiful belief that
1:46.1	you can be summed up in one sentence. I love this sentence. It's something that I think
1:50.2	every single person who's watching us, who's hearing us around the world can relate to.
1:54.9	And that is you are not the worst mistake that you've ever made.
2:00.3	That's right. Yeah. My clients have taught me that each person is more than the worst
2:04.2	thing they've ever done. Because when I meet them, I meet them through some accusation
2:08.6	of something horrific and terrible. And what they teach me is that they're more than
	...

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