Bryan Stevenson's 'Just Mercy'

Bryan Stevenson, a public lawyer for the innocent and poor and author of the award winning novel Just Mercy, came to Rider University for a shared reading opportunity, to present and speak about his book. To begin, Stevenson told the audience about his early life and how he went to a segregated public school when he was young and pristinely entered Harvard School of Government in Public Policy, to minimize the effects of racial inequality. He was always interested in defending those who were unable to represent themselves, and truly help those that were wrongly prosecuted. Stevenson quoted that there were four main factors that lead to changing the world; getting proximate to problems, changing the narrative of problems, protecting your hope, and a willingness to do uncomfortable things. He gave four lovely examples to prove why these four points were essential for changing the status quo. In Stevenson’s career he jumped around many times, feeling dissatisfied in every opportunity he took. Finally, he met some enthusiastic lawyers and found …show more content…
He gave an example of a little boy that killed his stepfather because the man would constantly get drunk and beat his mother. When the stepfather was passed out drunk on his bed the little boy shot him with a handgun kept it the nightstand. The only problem was, the boy’s stepfather was the Deputy Sherriff. Tragically, he little boy was arrested and sent to an adult prison, and tried as an adult. When Stevenson acquired the boy as a client he cried and told him about the horrible experiences he had with adult inmates in the prison. If it wasn’t for this boy’s stepfather being in a high position with law enforcement, he would not have went to an adult prison and went through traumatizing events. Stevenson urged that in order to fix this problem, we need to change the narrative how society views and spins stories to get the upper