In his second term, President Trump has ordered the removal of monuments, plaques and exhibitions related to slavery, and the history of racial injustice in the U.S. Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson has been working to ensure evidence of America's painful past is not erased.
Stevenson's nonprofit, the Equal Justice Initiative, opened the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala., in 2018, to chronicle slavery and racism in America. A new exhibit, which is both located in and called Montgomery Square, begins in 1955 with the boycott of Montgomery's segregated buses and ends 10 years later with the marches from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights.
Stevenson describes Montgomery's buses as "places of real peril" during Jim Crow. Black people were prohibited from sitting in the first 10 seats of the bus, which were reserved for white riders only. Additionally, Black people had to pay in the front of the bus, then go to the rear to board — hoping that the bus driver didn't take off without them. In 1950, a Black World War II veteran named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by police after he argued with the driver as he attempted to board a bus.
"Black people couldn't avoid [the buses] because they had to get to work; they had to go to the homes where they served as maids and cooks and domestic workers," Stevenson says. "And it did make the bus this very unique space for how racial apartheid, how segregation and Jim Crow manifested in the lives of virtually every Black person in the community."
Stevenson says he's not trying to "punish America" by talking about slavery and lynching. Rather, he says, confronting oppression is a path toward liberation.
"There is an America that is more free — where there's more equality, where there is more justice, where there less bigotry — and I think it's waiting for us," he says. "But I don't think we can ... create that America while we remain burdened by this history that too many refuse to talk about, too many refused to acknowledge."
Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which represents children and adults illegally convicted or unfairly sentenced. His 2014 memoir, Just Mercy, was adapted into a film starring Oscar-winning actor Michael B. Jordan.
Interview highlights
On meeting civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr
After a couple of hours, Mrs. Parks turned to me, and she said, "OK, Bryan, tell me what you're trying to do." And I told her about our work trying to represent people on death row. I said, "We're trying to challenge wrongful convictions. We're trying to challenge this legal system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you were poor and innocent. We're trying to represent children. We're trying to do something about bigotry and poverty and people who are mentally ill. We're trying to change the way we operate these jails and prisons."
I gave her my whole rap. And when I finished, she looked at me and she said, "Mm, mm, mm, that's going to make you tired, tired, tired!" And that's when Ms. Carr leaned forward and she put her finger in my face. She said, "That's why you've got to be brave, brave, brave." And Ms. Parks grabbed my hand and said, "Will you be brave?" And I said, "Yes, ma'am."
On the march from Selma to Montgomery
People were beaten and battered. And I just think to confront that kind of threat, with no protection, without an army, with no weapons, takes an extraordinary courage that I feel like we have to access again if we really want to create a more just world.Bryan Stevenson
We've been doing this project where we interview people. … Amelia Boynton Robinson was almost killed by horses and police officers. Lynda Blackmon Lowery said she got hit and she passed out. And for 40 years, she assumed that she passed out because she hit her head on the ground. And then when they uncovered documentary footage, she realized that she passed out and she was in that condition because after she fell, she was beaten by state troopers over and over again on the head. But she insisted on getting out of the hospital and being ready for the next march.
I think it's the courage, it's commitment, it is the tenacity, the acculturation to do things that most people would never choose to do. We recently lost Dr. Bernard Lafayette, an extraordinary leader who was tasked with organizing much of what happened in Selma. He told me, he said, "Bryan, we were prepared to die." … And I don't think people appreciate the extraordinary courage it took. ... People were beaten and battered. And I just think to confront that kind of threat, with no protection, without an army, with no weapons, takes an extraordinary courage that I feel like we have to access again if we really want to create a more just world, and I think that's the discovery that I'm really inspired by.
On documenting nearly 6,500 lynchings that took place in the U.S. — 2,000 more than had previously been documented
The detailed work of going into these communities and uncovering archive references and newspaper references was something that no one had undertaken. And so we spent five years combing through these records. ... We now have identified 6,500 lynchings of Black people in this country between 1865 and 1950. I do think it says something again about how we have failed to investigate this really important period of American history. ...
We've got instances where a man was lynched because he didn't call a police officer, "sir." Somebody didn't step off the sidewalk when white people walked by. A Black man went to the front door of a white person's house, not the back door. So many people were lynched, because they passed a note. They were Black men passing notes to white women. … One Black woman in Kentucky was lynched because they couldn't find her brother. So they used her as a proxy for this Black man who had been accused of something. And when you understand that this practice, this terror violence, was about tormenting and traumatizing and reinforcing this racial hierarchy, you begin to think of this differently.
On what truth and reconciliation looks like
You can't get the beautiful “R” words, like redemption and reconciliation and restoration and repair, unless you first tell the truth.Bryan Stevenson
The first thing is that for truth and justice, truth and reconciliation, truth and restoration, truth and repair, I think the first we have to acknowledge is that those things are sequential. You can't get the beautiful "R" words, like redemption and reconciliation and restoration and repair, unless you first tell the truth. As a lawyer, I can tell you that you've got to have the truth of what happened at the crime scene and the state understands this. They want to put all of the evidence in, because that's what's going to allow the jury to make an informed decision about culpability. And we've never really done that. And so I think this process of truth-telling has to shape what we do.
In South Africa, after the collapse of apartheid, they committed space for the victims of apartheid to give voice to their harm. They even created space for the perpetrators to give a voice to the regret. You go to Germany, the villain of the 20th century, and you can't go 200 meters without seeing markers and monuments and memorials dedicated to the harm of the Holocaust. They've made truth-telling a necessity. No student in German can graduate without demonstrating a detailed knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust. They require it. And the result of that is that there are no Adolf Hitler statues in Berlin. There are no monuments or memorials to the Nazis. We've never done that in this country. In fact, we've done the opposite.
Monique Nazareth and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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