Just Mercy

By Bryan Stevenson

No, sir, I was supposed to be there and I wanted to be there. I tried, I tried, Lord knows I tried, Mr. Stevenson. But when I saw that dog —” She shook her head and stared away with a distant look. “When I saw that dog, I thought about 1965, when we gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma and tried to march for our voting rights. They beat us and put those dogs on us.” She looked back to me sadly. “I tried to move, Attorney Stevenson, I wanted to move, but I just couldn’t do it.

This excerpt from Bryan Stevenson’s book Just Mercy is a quote from the grandmother of a man who was was given the death sentence for a crime he did not commit. She bravely attended a trial which Stevenson tirelessly worked to obtain for her grandson. But when she entered the courtroom, this is the scene Stevenson observed:

— I couldn’t help but watch her as she moved carefully through the doorway toward the metal detector. She walked more slowly than everyone else, but she held her head high with an undeniable grace and dignity. She reminded me of older women I’d been around all my life — women whose lives were hard but who remained kind and dedicated themselves to building and sustaining their communities. Mrs. Williams glanced at the available rows to see where she would sit, and then turned to walk through the metal detector — and that’s when she saw the dog.

I watched all of her composure fall away, replaced by a look of absolute fear. Her shoulders dropped, her body sagged, and she seemed paralyzed. For over a minute she stood there, frozen, and then her body began to tremble and then shake noticeably. I heard her groan. Tears were running down her face and she began to shake her head sadly. I kept watching until she turned around and quickly walked out of the courtroom.

This scene encapsulate the ethos of Stevenson’s powerful testimony about his work with death row prisoners, through the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization he founded. This story showed me how the echo of Selma is never far from the lives of those who survived it. This woman found resilience in the face of trauma the first time, and called on that resilience again when she was re-traumatized. I am frozen into silence that she should have to do so.

His story humbles me. The energy and compassion he put behind his work on behalf of citizens experiencing the very worst of our criminal justice system is humbling enough. But what really brings me to my knees is Stevenson’s ability to stand in the face of some of the most severe and traumatizing suffering human beings can experience. Suffering that most of us turn our heads away from, hold up our hands to stave off. He not only stands with his clients, but he attends to their stories with compassion, cries with and for them and their families, and calls on our leaders to bring a better form of justice to our country.

After many years of hard won victories and crushing defeats, Stevenson reflected toward the end of the book on why he does what he does. He says,

After working for more than twenty-five years, I understood that I don’t do what I do because it’s required or necessary or important. I don’t do it because I have no choice.

I do what I do because I’m broken too.

We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent.

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.

These are powerful words for us broken people. Bryan Stevenson inspires me to embrace my humanity, be present for my suffering and the suffering which I encounter. And bring compassion to my very best hope of healing.