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From: TT
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February 1 | Photo: Nick Frontier / AP / TT
Civil Law Attorney Bryan Stevenson. Image is from documentary “True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality.”
Freedom, equality, and justice – it’s probably on the horizon after all.
But if America wants to get there, the country must first come to terms with its racist history, says civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson. Now his fight is lauded with the “Alternative Nobel Prize”.
It was a very cloudy morning, Friday April 3, 2015 in Birmingham, Alabama.
But Anthony Ray Hinton didn’t realize it when he was released from the Jefferson County Jail at 9:30 a.m., after 30 years in prison for a crime he never committed.
– The sun is shining, he exclaimed when he was finally able to hug family and friends like a free man.
On Thursday night, he will present this year’s Right Livelihood Award to the person who helped get him freed.
Civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson is praised for his tireless fight against injustice in America’s legal system. Since its inception in 1989, his organization, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), has achieved the release or reduction of sentences for more than 140 people sentenced to death for false reasons.
It was his experience as a young attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, where he represented many poor black clients, that sparked Bryan Stevenson’s lifelong commitment to arbitrary incarceration and draconian punishments.
– We have a system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent, he says in an interview with TT by phone from Montgomery in Alabama.
Higher percentage of incarcerated
In the early 1970s, about 200,000 people were incarcerated in the United States, according to the US Bureau of Judicial Statistics. Today, the corresponding figure exceeds two million, making the United States the country in the world with the highest proportion of people locked up.
The reasons for the mass incarceration include harsh criminal laws, privatizations of the prison system and a “war on drugs” with a focus on legal action rather than social action, according to EJI.
– The high degree of incarceration disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. This is an acute crisis that has been largely ignored, says Bryan Stevenson with a glint in his voice that doesn’t neglect his linguistic precision.
Decades of fighting for equal treatment under the law have made Bryan Stevenson painfully aware of the structural racism that still permeates the judiciary. Black men, for example, have a significantly higher risk of being sentenced to harsh punishment than white men charged with the same crime, according to several studies.
“You must understand the disease”
The roots of the problems lie in the bloody soil America finds itself in, according to Stevenson.
– We have a history of genocide against indigenous people, slavery, lynching and segregation that we have never addressed, he says.
– Instead, we have a false story of pride and honor that manifests itself in the fact that we still pay tribute to the authors and defenders of slavery.
Among other things, it refers to the numerous statues throughout the country of southern generals who fought during the civil war to preserve slavery.
Bryan Stevenson compares himself to other countries with a brutal racist history, where great emphasis was placed on confronting the past to build a more just society: the apartheid of South Africa, the genocide of Rwanda and Nazi Germany.
– In Germany it would be unthinkable to honor the architects of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. The recognition of historical crimes creates obligations to combat anti-Semitism and the kind of nationalism that leads to the oppression of the other.
– We haven’t seen anything like it with us. We haven’t done the analysis we need to do to understand the versatile challenges created by a long history of white supremacy, says Bryan Stevenson, and it draws a parallel to the pandemic.
– You must first understand the disease before you can develop a vaccine.
Jump in the dark
Bryan Stevenson is concerned about deep polarization in the United States, which he believes has been fueled by the hateful rhetoric of outgoing President Donald Trump and, at times, vague statements about white power groups.
But he also sees that hope in movements like Black lives matters. They reflect a growing awareness of the issues America must address.
“There is something powerful in truth that I believe can penetrate confusion, darkness and chaos,” says Bryan Stevenson.
– There is something waiting for us up there, something that will feel more like freedom, equality and justice.
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