Bryan Stevenson's message focused on four points: proximity, changing the narrative, staying hopeful and doing uncomfortable things
LAWRENCE -- Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer who has been called "America's Mandela," delivered a message of action on Wednesday to Rider University students, urging them to create more justice in the world and make a difference.
Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer and author of "Just Mercy," speaks at Rider University Wednesday, Sept. 14. "We have to judge how we're doing in this country not by how we treat the rich and powerful, but how we treat the poor and the incarcerated," he said. "It is the broken among us that will create more justice, that will change the world, that understand the power of mercy and compassion and justice. I believe that broken people are our solution to greater justice."
Stevenson's best-selling memoir, "Just Mercy: A Story of Redemption and Justice," was read by freshmen, faculty and staff as part of Rider's shared reading program this summer. The book chronicles his attempts to overturn the convictions of prisoners he believes are wrongly convicted and the role race plays in the justice system.
His visit to campus on Wednesday marked the end of the university's "Unity Days," which this year delved into civil rights struggles then and now.
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Stevenson's message, hammered home by real-life stories of clients, focused on four points: proximity, changing the narrative, staying hopeful and doing uncomfortable things.
Get proximate to the problems
Stevenson said that too often policy and decision makers try to solve problems from a distance. But he said that getting close to a problem not only gives people a better understanding of the nuances, but also empowers them to do something about it.
"I don't believe you change the world with the ideas in your mind," he said. "I believe that you change the world when the ideas in your mind are fueled by some conviction in your heart. And what will nurture and shape and feed your heart is your choice to get proximate to the things that matter."
He encouraged the audience to go to places where there is suffering and abuse, bias and bigotry and poverty and despair.
He said he found his calling during an internship as a Harvard law student where one of his first assignments was to deliver a message to a man on Georgia's death row.
"Proximity is essential if we want to change the world," he said.
Change the narrative
Stevenson, who rattled off statistics about mass incarceration, said the problem has been sustained by a narrative of fear and anger.
"When you are afraid, when you are angry, when you allow a fear and anger to shape policies, you will abuse other human beings, you will treat people unfairly and you will create injustice," he said. "There's always a narrative that people can give you about why these people need to be oppressed, why these people need to be excluded, why these people can be treated less fairly, more harshly and that fear and anger narrative is what we have to change," he said.
Stevenson said that racial bias persists in the criminal justice system and much of that injustice is tied to the legacy of slavery and white supremacy that has never been dealt with.
"I don't think slavery ended in 1865. I think it just evolved," he said. "Our history is that for decades in this country, we burdened and we battered and we excluded and we marginalized and we humiliated people of color every day of their lives.
"We never dealt with that and because of that, we're suffering," he continued. "It doesn't take much to create conflict and tension. All of this police violence on the streets has created so much frustration and anger because there is this presumption of guilt."
Protect your hope
Stevenson told the students that there will be times when they get discouraged, but they need to stay hopeful.
"Hopelessness is the enemy of justice," he said. "We get an awareness that things are so much more complicated than we thought they were going to be that we become hopeless about what we can do. We stop believing that we can be that person that we wanted to be when we came here and we've got to fight against it."
Be willing to do uncomfortable things
Stevenson said that change and progress that is made in equality and fairness only comes about when people leave their comfort zones.
"Justice comes when people do uncomfortable things, when they do inconvenient things and it's a very hard thing to do," he said.
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.