Bryan Stevenson

“My parents lived in a poor rural community on the Eastern Shore, and schools were still segregated. And I remember when lawyers came into our community to open up the public schools to black kids.”

“[N]o lie can live forever...”

“Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.”

“We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

“I believe that each person is more than the worst thing they've ever done.”

“We've done a very poor job at really reflecting on our legacy of racial inequality... You see it in the South, but it's everywhere.”

“Many states can no longer afford to support public education, public benefits, public services without doing something about the exorbitant costs that mass incarceration have created.”

“I can't identify a race of people in this country who are more committed to the health of this country, who believe more in the Constitution, who believe more in equality and liberation and fairness to everyone else than black people.”

“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.”

“I think when you see that the status quo creates pain and anguish and suffering, what I am most afraid of is that things will stay the same.”

“There was never a time you could get the majority of people in Alabama or Mississippi, or even southern Delaware, to vote to end segregation. What changed things was the rule of law, the courts. Brown v. Board of Education was ushered in by a movement, but it was a legal decision.”

“That's my mission: I really want to get in the heads and hearts of kids and persuade them that they can believe things they haven't seen, they can do things that maybe others haven't done before them, that they are more than their worst acts.”

“Obviously, there were ways to have made a lot more money and to have had more leisure. But I wouldn't choose that. I feel rich in ways that are unique and that I would never trade for tens of millions of dollars in the bank.”

“We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion.We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our humanity.”

“I'm not persuaded that the opposite of poverty is wealth - I've come to believe... that the opposite of poverty is justice.”

“If you read the 13th Amendment, it doesn't talk about narratives of racial difference. It doesn't talk about ideologies of white supremacy. It only talks about involuntary servitude and forced labor.”

“When I went to Harvard Law School, my first year, I didn't want people to know I started my education in a colored school. I didn't want them to know I was the great-grandson of enslaved people. I thought it might diminish me.”

“You can't segregate and humiliate people decade after decade without creating long-lasting injuries.”

“It can be a challenge, but my legacy, at least for the people who came before me, is you don't run from challenges because that's more comfortable and convenient.”

“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”