Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm blessed
to speak with Bryan Stevenson, founder of Equal
Justice Initiative, talking with me from his
office in Montgomery, Alabama. This podcast is
a project of www .beatitudescenter .org. where
you can find many other podcasts and regular
Zoom programs on the nonviolence of Jesus and
practicing nonviolence and working for a more
just, more nonviolent world. As I like to do,
I like to begin with a little prayer. So I invite
everybody listening just to take a deep breath
wherever you are and just to relax and recenter
yourself. And we enter here into the presence
of the God of universal love who loves you. infinitely
and personally in everyone. Let's welcome the
nonviolent Jesus with us. Just take a moment
to ask for whatever graces and blessings you
need to do God's will. God of peace, thank you
for all the blessings of life and love and peace
that you give us. Be with us now as Brian and
I reflect together on... your call to work for
justice and mercy, to be instruments of peace,
and inspire us, bless us, disarm us all, strengthen
us, and send us all out to do what we can to
help you end poverty, racism, greed, injustice,
war, and the whole culture of violence and death
and destruction. that we might be your beatitude
people of universal love, compassion, and peace,
your holy peacemakers. In Jesus' name, amen.
So it's my great pleasure to welcome today and
introduce everybody to the legendary Bryan Stevenson,
lawyer, founder, and executive director of Equal
Justice Initiative, also professor of law at
New York University Law School. an author of
the great best -selling book Just Mercy, which
is also made into a terrific movie of the same
name, which I hope everybody will go and see
the movie and read the book. One of the greatest
books of our time, about Brian's journey from
Harvard to Montgomery, Alabama, where he started
a small nonprofit to serve those on death row,
the poor, the wrongly condemned, those trapped
in the furthest reaches of our criminal injustice
system. At the heart of the book is the story
of Walter McMillian, a young man sentenced to
die for a notorious murder he didn't commit.
And Brian has won relief for dozens of condemned
prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme
Court, won many awards, including the MacArthur
Foundation Genius Grant. And a couple years ago,
Brian built... With the support of a lot of people
and a lot of money, he raised two museums in
Montgomery, Alabama, which I have visited. The
National Museum of Peace and Justice, a six -acre
hilltop overlooking Montgomery, the nation's
first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the
legacy of black Americans who were enslaved,
terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial
segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous.
Their names are engraved on more than 800 monuments.
The other museum is the Legacy Museum, From Enslavement
to Mass Incarceration, it's called, which displays
the history of slavery, racial lynchings, segregation,
and racial bias in America. And I hope you'll
all visit them and go to Montgomery, Alabama.
Archbishop Tutu, my friend, called Brian. America's
young Nelson Mandela, and rightly so, Bryan Stevenson,
thank you so much for joining me today here at
this Nonviolent Jesus podcast. Oh, it's my great
pleasure to be with you. Hey, Bryan, I just have
to say from the beginning, on behalf of myself
and all the listeners and millions and millions
of people, thank you, thank you, thank you so
much for being a voice for justice and mercy
and all the beautiful, holy, inspiring work you
do. Thank you for everything, Bryan. I appreciate
that. Thank you. So I don't know where to begin.
And I've been just obsessed with talking about
you and rereading your book and studying it.
And, you know, your book is now out, a new 10th
anniversary edition. Congratulations. It tells
your story from Harvard to Alabama and meeting
and working with all those people in prison and
death row and the rural poor. Wow, taking on
the white supremacist establishment and systemic
racial injustice, especially your friend Walter.
And here we are, 2025, 10 years after your book
came out, Brian. I think things are worse than
when you started. I'm 65, been at this for 45
years, and with our friend Paul Farmer, things
are as bad as ever. And they're getting rid of
civil rights and voting rights legislation. Rise
of white supremacy at a new level with the Trump
administration moving into full -blown what?
Oligarchy, fascism, authoritarianism, cutting
any decent programs. I thought we could just
start, Brian, by you giving us your take on what's
happening right now in Alabama and the country
in whatever way you want to talk about it. Well,
thank you. I do think we are in a moment where
the politics of fear and anger are raging. They
are raging in this country, but they're raging
all around the world. And what's scary about
that is that when societies allow themselves
to be governed by fear and anger, they start
tolerating things we should never tolerate. We
start accepting things we should never accept.
When you look at human history, in the worst
moments of human history, you can evaluate what
happened during those tragic moments and find
at the core narratives of fear and anger shaping
behavior, shaping policies, shaping the functioning
of government. The Holocaust can't be understood
without understanding how the Nazis... used narratives
of fear and anger and directed them at people
who are Jewish or people who are gay or people
who were Roma to create this horrific violence
and destruction. You know, 30 years ago, we saw
a genocide in Rwanda where hundreds of thousands
of people were killed and the narratives of fear
and anger spread through that country and just
unconscionable things happened. When I look at
American history, The parts of our history, the
moments in our history when we did the most destructive
things were being guided by those same narratives
of fear and anger. And we're in the midst of
that now. We have elected leaders that want everybody
angry, that want everybody fearful. And that
has put us in this valley that I think you have
rightly described as a really troubling time.
And so for me, what that means is that those
of us who don't want to give in. to fear and
anger have to become hopeful and courageous.
We have to become faithful truth -tellers. We
have to stand when people say sit down. We have
to speak when people say be quiet. The encouraging
thing to me about this moment is that we've seen
this before. I'm the heir of people who were
enslaved in America, the grandson of people who
were terrorized during the period of lynching,
the child of people who were brutalized by segregation.
And my four parents found a way to cope, to survive,
to endure, and to resist these narratives of
fear and anger. I started my education in a colored
school. They didn't let me go to the public schools.
When I got to the public schools after integration,
the presumption was I wasn't equipped, wasn't
capable, wasn't worthy to be there. And you had
to navigate. A lot of those presumptions. I think
we're better positioned than we've ever been
before to overcome these narratives of fear and
anger, but it's going to require some work. It's
going to require some faith. It's going to require
some activism. It's going to require some believing
in our capacity to do better than what we're
seeing in this particular moment. Thank you.
Maybe we can get more specific a little bit later
on. One of the amazing things about your story
is, you know, you're at Harvard and you back
up and you move to Alabama. And you had that
kind of faith and courage and willingness to
stand up and speak out. And you're just one person.
And then you end up meeting these other good
people. forward and all this hard work is continuing
to bear such good fruit i guess um did you ever
think so or what is the lesson there that you
just keep at it and keep uh being hopeful and
stay the course no matter what and watch positive
good work unfold does that make sense yeah Yeah.
I mean, I think for me, you know, proximity has
been a source of power. I grew up in a poor,
racially segregated community. And as I said,
black kids couldn't go to the public schools.
Most of the adults that I grew up around didn't
have high school degrees because there were literally
no high schools for black people in our county
when they were teenagers. And then lawyers came
into the community and changed everything. by
enforcing our commitment to the rule of law.
And because those lawyers got proximate to poor
black kids like me, I got to go to high school.
I got to go to college. That's how I got to law
school. So I was interested in getting proximate
to other people who were disfavored, marginalized,
excluded, at risk, and doing for them what others
had done. For me, and I wrote in Just Mercy about
how going to death row when I was a law student
completely changed me. Meeting a condemned man
on death row, sitting down with him and forgetting
that I was a law student and forgetting that
he was a condemned prisoner, and just talking
to him for two or three hours, and then getting
lost in his humanity and the fellowship we were
creating in that horrid space. And then having
that visit interrupted by guards who were angry
that we were laughing and talking and bonding
and came into the room and grabbed him and put
the handcuffs back on his wrist and wrapped the
chain around his waist and put the metal shackles
on his ankles so violently and started shoving
him toward the door. To see him treated so badly
and not be able to stop that mistreatment really
alarmed me. But then he got in front of the door.
Before he left that room and he turned to me
and he said, Brian, don't worry about this. You
just come back. And then he did that thing I'll
never forget where he closed his eyes, threw
his head back, and began to sing. And he started
singing the hymn, 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. And it
stunned everyone. The guard stopped. And then
they recovered and started pushing him down the
hallway. And you could hear the chains clanging,
but you could hear this man singing about higher
ground. Hearing his song was like a calling from
God. I knew then that I wanted to help condemned
people get to higher ground. And being proximate
to this condemned man and hearing his song changed
everything for me. I went back to Harvard Law
School. You couldn't get me out of the law school
library. I needed to know everything. about habeas
corpus and res judicata and comedy and federalism
and all of the jurisprudence necessary to help
condemned people, and now some 40 -plus years
later, if I reflect on my career, if I reflect
on the things I've done, if I've helped anybody
during my career, if I've made a difference in
the lives of my clients, it's not because we
work hard. We try to. It's not because we're
smart. We try to be smart. It's not because we're
tactical. We try to do that, too. But if I'm
honest, if I've helped anybody during my career,
it's because I got close to a condemned man and
heard his song. And I still believe, Father,
that in jails and prisons, people are singing.
In places where people are marginalized and excluded,
in places where people have been oppressed and
ignored and mistreated, there are songs still
being sung. And if we get close enough to hear
those melodies, to hear the humanity, to hear
God's grace manifest in the lives of people,
of the poor and those who are disfavored. We
find power, we find strength, we find knowledge,
we find wisdom, we find the capacity to make
a difference. And that is what has sustained
me in Alabama, in my work, is that relationship
to God's children who are often neglected, pushed
aside, condemned, incarcerated, forgotten. Thank
you so much, Brian. So we saw just as President
Biden left office, him commute the sentences
of 37 people from federal death row. But last
week as we were recording this, we also saw South
Carolina execute someone by firing squad. Tell
me about the death penalty today and your work
to abolish it and also how it's connected to
the larger systemic. Racism, mass incarceration,
police brutality, but also the whole white supremacist
culture and the country itself. Now, that's a
big and outrageous question, but I'm just trying
to, you know what, I'm just, you know, I visited
Jackson, Georgia, too, in the 80s and had a close
friend on death row. And it helped change my
life and used to get Mother Teresa to make phone
calls. intervene with governors. And so I hear
you. And yet here we are all these years later,
and there's progress and things are worse at
the same time. So tell me about that. Yeah, I
think justice is a constant struggle. You know,
we never get to a place where we can claim that
we have won and it will never be injustice. It
is a feature of this world that That inequality
breeds injustice. It breeds abuse of power. It
breeds excessive violence. And I do think the
death penalty is one of the most dramatic manifestations
of that abuse of power. I have always believed
that the threshold question that we should be
asking when people think about capital punishment
is not whether people should deserve to die for
the crimes they've committed. The threshold question
should be, Do we deserve to kill when we have
a flawed system, when we have a system that's
been compromised by racial bias, when we have
a system that treats you better if you're rich
and guilty than if you're poor and innocent?
And that is the system that we've had. We've
made a lot of progress over the last 10 years
since I wrote Just Mercy. A bunch of states have
abolished the death penalty. The number of people
on death row has dropped considerably. The number
of executions has dropped. But we are still in
this struggle. And that execution in South Carolina
recently is a painful, heartbreaking reminder
of that, where they pulled this man out and lined
up people with guns who shot him in a firing
squad. We've had executions in Alabama recently
where they couldn't kill the person with lethal
injection. They kept them on the... gurney for
hours poking and prodding and were never able
to successfully kill the person through an injection.
So they called off that execution and then months
later took him back and asphyxiated him with
nitrogen gas until he suffocated and died. And,
you know, our society calls that justice. I think
it is a remnant of our long history of using
violence to maintain certain kinds of power.
Before Europeans came to this continent, there
were millions of indigenous peoples here who
had communities and societies that thrived. And
within a very short period of time, those indigenous
peoples were forced off their land. They were
subjected to violence and abuse, and the population
dwindled. And in the midst of that, we were creating
a constitution that talked about equality and
justice for all, but we didn't apply those concepts
to native people because we said, oh, no, those
native people, they're different. racially different.
And this narrative of racial difference was born
in America. And it was like an infection and
it spread. And it was that narrative that was
used to justify 246 years of slavery. 10 million
black people were enslaved. 6 million died enslaved.
At the end of the Civil War, 4 million were emancipated.
But the great evil of that era of slavery for
me was this narrative we created. because people
who enslaved others didn't want to think of themselves
as immoral or indecent or unchristian. And so
they created a false narrative to help them reckon
with the violence and the abuse and the suffering
they saw all around them. And this false narrative
contended that black people are not as good as
white people. Black people are less capable,
less worthy, less human, less evolved. And that
false narrative... was for me the lasting evil
of slavery because it survived the Civil War.
I often argue that the North won the Civil War,
but the South won the narrative war. And after
emancipation, Black people were still presumed
inferior, unworthy. And that's why our efforts
during Reconstruction failed. And for a century
following the Civil War, Black people were pulled
out of their homes, beaten, drowned, tortured,
and lynched. And when you understand that history,
it's hard to understand how could people in this
country tolerate that sort of mob violence, torturing
people, subjecting people to horrific violence,
burning them alive, all of this horrible stuff.
And Congress didn't do anything. Law enforcement
didn't do anything. And you can't understand
that without understanding this narrative of
racial hierarchy, of white supremacy. And that's
what created the codified segregation that shaped
my early years, this Jim Crow era. And courageous
people responded. Dr. King and Rosa Parks and
so many others came together here in Montgomery
and began a movement that tore down the legal
architecture of segregation and Jim Crow, but
the narrative persisted. And that's why here
in 2025, we're still dealing with manifestations
of that narrative, a hostility to diversity,
a hostility to equality, a nervousness about
treating people equally and fairly because that
might diminish the power of some. while creating
opportunities for others. It's tragic that even
in 2025, you can be talented, you can be wealthy,
you can be gifted, you can be a priest, you can
be a pastor, you can be kind, you can be loving,
but if you're black or brown, you'll go places
where you have to navigate this presumption of
dangerousness and guilt. And because I'm getting
older, I can tell you, when you constantly navigate
these presumptions, it's exhausting. And that
is why I think we need an era of truth and justice,
truth and repair, truth and reconciliation, truth
and restoration. Without truth -telling, we cannot
free ourselves from the burden of this history.
Truth -telling will lead us away from the death
penalty. It's when we tell the truth that we'll
be able to understand that we are all more than
the worst thing we've ever done. Truth will cause
us to recognize that if someone tells a lie,
they're not just a liar. If someone takes something,
they're not just a thief. That even if you kill
someone, You're not just a killer. And that is
the era. That is the movement that I'm really
hoping we can advance in this moment, because
I continue to believe that truth is the antidote
to quelling fear and anger. It's the antidote
to the abuse of power that we see all around
us. Truth will set us free. And I think people
of faith have a critical role to play in this,
because we know that we can't be afraid to be
honest about our mistakes. In my church, you
can't come in there and say, I want heaven and
redemption and salvation and all these wonderful
things, but I'm not prepared to admit to anything.
I'm not prepared to confess any wrongdoing. We
know that confession and repentance is what opens
our heart to grace and mercy. And we just have
a lot of brothers and sisters in this country
that haven't accepted that, that don't believe
that, and they're allowing their anger and their
fear to shape their decision -making, their voting,
their beliefs. There are hostilities toward people
who are different. And that's the challenge that
we face. And to me, the death penalty is just
the most violent and heartbreaking manifestation
of that challenge. But we are in a moment where
I think we have the capacity to do more and to
do better. Well, thank you so much, Brian, for
your eloquent reflection. I wanted to ask you
about your friend. Walter McMillian. He's the
center of your book, Just Mercy, and the center
of the movie, played by Jamie Foxx. So he was
an innocent man condemned to death for a terrible
crime, which he didn't do, and you, and mobilizing
all kinds of people were able to get him off
death row, and he died maybe 10 or 12 years ago.
And I thought maybe... So anything you would
like to share with us, with me about Walter,
because he embodied the stuff you're calling
all of us to. And to do that, let me read to
you and for the listeners the very end of Brian's
magnificent book, Just Mercy, because it gets
into the question, Brian, what is just mercy
and what Walter taught you? So what I'm reading
here is Brian's. Brian ends his book telling
about what he said at Walter's funeral. Quote,
I told the congregation that Walter's case had
taught me that the death penalty is not about
whether people deserve to die for the crimes
they commit. The real question of capital punishment
in this country is, do we deserve to kill? I
told those gathered in the church that Walter
had taught me that mercy is just. when it is
rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy
is most empowering, liberating, and transformative
when it is directed at the undeserving. The people
who haven't earned it, who haven't even sought
it, are the most meaningful recipients of our
compassion. genuinely forgave the people who
unfairly accused him, the people who convicted
him, and the people who had judged him unworthy
of mercy. And in the end, it was just mercy toward
others that allowed him to recover a life worth
celebrating, a life that rediscovered the love
and freedom that all humans desire, a life that
overcame death and condemnation until it was
time to die on God's schedule. Tell us about
Walter. Yeah, Walter did teach me a lot. He was
humble. He was honest. And he kept the faith.
I mean, I was a very young lawyer when I started
working on his case. And he believed in me. He
gave me the confidence to believe that if he
thought I could do it, then I have to think I
can do it too. And there were so many obstacles
in that case. I got death threats and our office
was... getting bomb threats. So many people were
angry that I chose to stand near him. But his
spirit, his humanity, his dignity, his worth
as a human being made me understand that standing
next to the condemned, standing next to people
who are hated, standing next to people who are
disfavored creates an opportunity to harness
grace, to harness love. to harness dignity and
create something beautiful. I mean, I think about
my relationship with Walter and it makes me smile
because, you know, we found a way to love one
another and care for one another in circumstances
that most people don't associate with love or
compassion. And I think his whole community made
me understand. When I represent someone on death
row, I'm not just representing an individual.
I feel like I'm representing all the people who
have been wrongly condemned, all the people who
have been unfairly accused, all of the families
that have suffered and struggled in silence because
their humanity has been undermined by misjudgment,
by bigotry. And in that regard, it's a holy quest.
It's a greater struggle than the... parameters
of a single case. And when we prevail, when we're
able to win freedom, it feels like a bigger victory
than just the release of one person. I have always
been persuaded from the prophets, Micah 6, that
God requires of us to do justice and to love
mercy and to walk humbly. And Walter helped me
understand the power of that, the urgency of
that, the beauty of that. And he will forever
be in my heart. Oh, that's so beautiful. I'm
so glad I asked you that you brought out about
Micah. So one of your biggest fans is my friend
who I did the first podcast with, the actor Martin
Sheen, and I was telling him about you. He just
thinks your book is magnificent as it is. And
I was telling him how much I loved the movie.
I hope you'll laugh, Brian. He said, oh, I was
so disappointed in that movie. I just couldn't
believe it. He was upset because he thought the
scene that you have in the book, which doesn't
appear in the movie, was one of the most powerful
he'd ever seen. So I want you to tell a little
bit about it, if you would. This is a story,
it's almost in passing, really. One of the horrible
trips you're making way out to the prison and
you get there and there's this truck and it's
covered with Ku Klux Klan bumper stickers and
all of that. And then you get in there and meet
the guard and you just can't get any more horrible
than this big white guy who's clearly like a
member of the Klan and so forth. And he forces
you into strip search and he's just... about
as cruel and inhuman as can be. And this goes
on. You have to keep doing this. And then he
brings, I think, Walter into the trial. He's
there for three days, this guard. Here's the
innocence of Walter, as I remember. And then
you go back to the prison the next time, and
he's kind of a different person. And Martin is
very interested, like I am, in how that kind
of transformation happens. It's really about
Kingian nonviolence. Can you reflect, tell us
that story and reflect on what it meant for you?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, particularly in the 90s,
you'd go into these places and there would be
a lot of hostility. There weren't a lot of black
lawyers going into these spaces. And this was
a particular day when I parked in the prison
lot and there was a truck covered with all of
these bumper stickers that were just horrific.
One of the bumper stickers read, quote, if I'd
known it was going to be like this, I'd have
picked my own cotton. And it was alarming to
me to see that and the Confederate flags and
the iconography of hate and resistance to integration
plastered all over this truck. And when I went
inside, this correctional officer was so hostile.
He didn't believe I was a lawyer. He made me
go into the bathroom and subject. myself to a
strip search, which no lawyer should ever have
to do. He just tried to humiliate me. And before
I went to go see my client, he made a point of
telling me that the truck in the parking lot
that I likely saw, that was his truck. And it
unnerved me. And I actually wasn't seeing Walter
that day. I was seeing another man who was very
severely mentally ill. And he had all kinds of
issues. And when I got there, he asked me, if
I had brought him a chocolate milkshake. It was
the first time I'd met him. And I just thought
it was the craziest thing. And I said, no, I'm
your lawyer. I'm here to help you in your case.
And he seemed really despondent and disappointed.
I didn't bring him this milkshake. And then I
realized he was suffering from mental illness
and mental health problems. And I promised I
would try to bring him a milkshake the next time.
And that was the only way he could engage with
me. And the prison never let me do that. And
it finally was time to go to court in his case.
And that hostile guard was in the courtroom.
And he heard the testimony presented over those
three days about how this man had been in 29
foster homes by the time he was 10, about how
he started abusing drugs to deal with untreated
schizophrenia, untreated bipolar disorder, untreated
psychotic conditions, and about the tragedy that
surrounded the crime when he was. hallucinating
and psychotic. And the next time I went back
to the prison to see this client, the guard was
completely changed. And he didn't make me sign
in. He didn't make me strip. He didn't do any
of those things. He just took me to the door
of the prison area, the visitation area. And
then he stopped me and told me that he had been
in court when we presented our evidence. And
then he said, I just need to tell you that I
think what you're doing is a good thing. And
then he said, I realized that I'm a very angry
person. He said, I didn't think anybody had it
worse than I've had it. But listening to the
evidence in that case, I realized your client
had it worse than me. And he said, I just want
you to know, I think you're doing a good thing
and I want to shake your hand. And I couldn't
believe it. And I shook his hand and I was about
to go inside. And that's when he grabbed me by
the arm. He said, oh, one more thing, one more
thing. I said, what's that? He said, well, on
the way back from the courthouse. to the prison,
I took an exit and I took your client to a Wendy's
and I bought him a chocolate milkshake. And it
just moved me in ways that very few things do.
And when I got to see my client, it was the first
time he never asked for a milkshake. That guard
left that prison shortly after that. But it's
the reason why I believe that we have to show
mercy. We have to do justice. We have to love
mercy. for the undeserving, for the people who
don't treat us the way they should treat us,
for the people who are falling down, for the
people who are struggling. And that encounter
reminded me of that. It reinforced that for me.
And it's one of the many acts of grace and mercy
and love that I see along this journey, which
from a distance may look really horrible. painful
and ugly. And there are aspects of it which are
horrible, painful and ugly. But in the midst
of that, you also encounter grace and mercy and
beauty and redemption and love. And that is absolutely
what sustains me. Thank you. Wow. I know the
time is coming to an end, but I've got to ask
you two more questions. One is, Brian, I've been...
So I'm an activist and a priest, and I've spent
about a year of my life in prison. And I have
many felony convictions for hammering on nuclear
weapons and all. And all along, as a student
of Gandhi and Dr. King, I have been publicly
teaching around the world in my books. As Gandhi
said, that Jesus was the greatest person of nonviolence
in history, and therefore all Christians are
called to be totally nonviolent. And so, Brian,
this is why Paul Farmer was such an encourager
of me, because, of course, every day of my life,
Christians are telling me, oh, no, you got to
kill somebody. So I just want to ask your thoughts
about the nonviolence of Jesus. And what it means
to be on a spiritual journey, I think you're
a Christian, I don't know, but Kingian nonviolence,
gospel nonviolence, if Gandhi is right that Jesus
is the greatest person of nonviolence in history,
wow, everything has to change in terms of the
religious -based, religious support of not just
racism. But nuclear weapons and destruction of
the planet, everything, everything, all violence.
What do you think? Yes, I absolutely believe
that. I absolutely believe that. I think accepting
violence, participating in violence is a curse.
And I think we become disconnected from the things
that will allow us to get close to God. You know,
living here in Montgomery. being a student of
the civil rights movement, it was the commitment
of people in this community to nonviolence that
ultimately tore down the legal architecture of
segregation. And in this moment, with the politics
of fear and anger, I think we have to talk more
about our values and our character. I do not
believe in violence. I think that violence is
a pathway to destruction and abuse. It will create
hatred. It will create burdens that it will be
very, very hard to free ourselves from. So we
have to commit to nonviolence. I think we have
to commit to being against bigotry in all of
its forms. We cannot hate. And I think we have
to commit to appreciating one another rather
than diminishing one another. And so for me,
yes, that is essential to my faith. You know,
after emancipation, four million formerly enslaved
people could have absolutely wanted revenge and
retribution against those who had enslaved them.
They could have chosen to seek violence against
the very people that had separated them from
their children and their parents and their spouses.
But that remarkable community of people, faithful
people, truly Christian people, chose citizenship.
They started building churches. They started
building schools. They said, no, we're not going
to give in to the instincts that justify violence.
We're going to show a new way. And I feel very
connected to that narrative, to that community.
My great grandparents were enslaved in Virginia,
but they rejected violence and chose education
and love and faith. My grandparents were terrorized.
They saw violence all around them, but they rejected
that. And segregation is violent. You know, those
signs that said whites only and black people
to the back and all of that, they weren't just
directions. They were assaults. They created
injuries and wounds and scars. And many of us
bear those scars today. But we have chosen not
to retaliate because we know that that's only
going to be a curse for us. Violence is like
hate. It weighs you down. And so I absolutely
embrace. nonviolence as not just a philosophy,
not just an orientation, but as a tenet of my
faith, as an essential feature of what it means
to be a follower, to be a believer, to be a faithful
person. Well, thank you so much, Brian. Well,
Brian, I have about 50 more questions for you,
but I can't ask them, so you're off the hook.
But I'm going to ask you a last question about
hope. So I'm going through your book, and all
of a sudden you start talking about Vaclav Havel.
I'm going to quote to you from page 219, the
great Czech leader. And he said that the one
thing people struggling in Eastern Europe during
Soviet domination, the one thing they needed
was hope. And you were very moved and inspired
by that. And I'm not sure about hope these days
in this terrible moment we're living through.
But then you quote Havel as saying that there
were a lot of things people wanted. But there
was only one thing they needed, and that was
hope. But it wasn't pie in the sky, and it wasn't
optimism over pessimism, but rather, and here's
your quote, an orientation of the spirit. The
kind of quote, the kind of hope that creates
a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless
place, which is what you've done, and be a witness,
which is what you are, that allows one to believe
in a better future, even in the face of abusive
power. That kind of hope makes one strong. Tell
me about that, Brian. Yeah, I'm persuaded by
that. I believe that hopelessness is the enemy
of justice. I think injustice prevails where
hopelessness persists. So hope, for me, it's
our superpower. It's the thing that will allow
us to do the things that other people think we
cannot do. I mean, I never imagined. at the start
of my journey that we would be able to help so
many people, that we'd win cases at the U .S.
Supreme Court, that thousands of people would
get their sentences reduced based on some of
our advocacy. I never imagined that we would
create this landscape of memorials and museums
and monuments that are calling people to recognize
the harm of our history of racial injustice.
and racial inequality. And now hundreds of thousands
of people are coming and appear to be so moved.
And so I'm mystified sometimes by where I've
gotten, but I am persuaded that my journey forward,
wherever that takes me, has to be rooted in hope.
I stand on the shoulders of people who did so
much more with so much less. I don't feel like
I can ever allow hopelessness to shape my thinking,
to guide my steps. And my faith is rooted in
hope as well. And so, yes, I absolutely believe
that hope is the essential ingredient. It's the
secret that we have to carry deep in our hearts.
And the people who have blessed me the most,
the people who have inspired me the most, people
like John Lewis, people like Paul Farmer, people
like Tony Campola was a teacher of mine. I hear
them still speaking in my ear. They are still.
In my heart, they're still feeding my soul, and
the words they have for me are words of hope
and affirmation, and that's what I want to give
to others as I journey onward as well. Thank
you, Brian. Is there any last thing you'd like
to share with our listeners? Just that I'm honored
to speak with you, Father, and I'm so grateful
for all of your work, your ministry, your activism,
the beauty of your Spirit. It's a real honor
to speak with you. Well, thank you so much, Brian
Stevenson, for speaking with me today. And I
hope we can always be friends, Brian. And whatever
I can do for you, let me know. And I hope you'll
speak with me again someday because I have that
rest of those long list of questions for you.
So thanks, friends, for listening to the Nonviolent
Jesus podcast. You can hear more podcasts and
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And join me next time, and may the God of peace
bless us all. Keep on following the nonviolent
Jesus, everybody, and I'll see you then. God
bless.