Short Essay
2
This is an important film and so I have created this study guide to help you get the most out of the material presented by Bryan Stevenson. This 2019, HBO documentary has a running time of about one hour and 42 minutes. Hopefully, we will watch it all in one sitting. Let me give you a little background information on Mr. Stevenson:
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 135 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of two highly acclaimed cultural sites which opened in 2018: the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.
Mr. Stevenson’s work has won him numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize; the ABA Medal, the American Bar Association’s highest honor; the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union after he was nominated by United States Supreme Court Justice John Stevens; the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year by the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers; and the Olaf Palme Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, for international human rights. In 2002, he received the Alabama State Bar Commissioners Award. In 2003, the SALT Human Rights Award was presented to Mr. Stevenson by the Society of American Law Teachers. In 2004, he received the Award for Courageous Advocacy from the American College of Trial Lawyers and also the Lawyer for the People Award from the National Lawyers Guild. In 2006, New York University presented Mr. Stevenson with its Distinguished Teaching Award. Mr. Stevenson won the Gruber Foundation International Justice Prize and was awarded the NAACP William Robert Ming Advocacy Award, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award, and the Roosevelt Institute Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award. In 2012, Mr. Stevenson received the American Psychiatric Association Human Rights Award, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Fred L. Shuttlesworth Award, and the Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award in Social Progress. Mr. Stevenson was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2014 and won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. In 2015, he was named to the Time 100 list recognizing the world’s most influential people. In 2016, he received the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award. He was named in Fortune’s 2016 and 2017 World’s Greatest Leaders list. He received the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize from the King Center in Atlanta in 2018.
Mr. Stevenson has received 40 honorary doctoral degrees, including degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Oxford University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy, which was named by Time Magazine as one of the 10 Best Books of Nonfiction for 2014 and has been awarded several honors, including the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal for best nonfiction book of 2015 and a 2015 NAACP Image Award. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government.
Things to notice in the film. I have left room for your notes under each question:
· What year did Bryan experience swimming in a segregated swimming pool in the deep South? What state was he in? Think about how recent in time this actually was. Your professor in this class has a daughter that is only 7 years younger than Bryan.
· Do you think the white children who were made to get out of the swimming pool remembered the incident? How powerful do you think memories are? Does racism harm everybody or only people of color?
· Why did Johnnie Carr tell Brian he was going to need to be “Brave Brave Brave”?
· Notice that the State of Alabama has no public defender system and the highest death penalty rate in the nation.
· Notice the comment that the death penalty belt states go with “race, poverty, politics, and passions of the moment” and that it’s all about race and place. What does that mean to you?
· Pay attention to the scene when Bryan Stevenson is confronting a white female legislator about percentages of black people who are incarcerated versus percentages of the population of black people and the applause that follows. How do you feel about that scene? What do you see on Bryan’s face when the people applaud? Is the legislator right or wrong?
· What was the Dred Scott decision and what was its impact on African-Americans in America?
· How were states rights used as a tool of racism and why is the term “states rights” considered a dog whistle in today’s politics?
· Note the protests of the 1940s and 1950s as African-Americans began to assert their civil rights in America.
· Who was Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP?
· Pay attention when you see pictures or scenes of the Supreme Court of the United States. What racial and gender makeup do you see? Are there any women? Are there any people of color?
· What was Brown versus the Board of Education and what year was it decided?
· What were colored schools?
· What did you hear Ray Hinton say about the smell of burning human flesh? Why does he say he needs a southern white man to help when his case?
· What is death Row syndrome?
· What does Brian say about the power of “I love you”?
· How was the narrative war won by the South? What does that mean?
· Was white supremacy enforced by lynchings? If so, how?
· What were some of the reasons for lynching given in the film? Did you notice that interracial romance was one of the top reasons for lynching? How do you feel about that?
· Where is Monroe County? Who is Harper Lee and why is she important to Monroe County?
· What does the film teach you about Walter McMillan’s conviction? When did that happen? Why is that especially relevant today?
· Why does Walter have dementia?
· Why is the death penalty so dangerous? What percentage of people sentenced to death are found to be innocent?
· Why does Bryan say that gangs, drugs, and crime go back to the horrors of slavery and poverty? Do you agree? Why or why not?
· Who is the unseen child? What does Bryan say about kids in huge orange jumpsuits chained to poles? How do you feel about teenagers doing life sentences were getting the death penalty?
· What is the difference between law and justice? Are they the same thing? Why not?
· In 2005 Roper versus Simmons was an important case. What was it about?
· What did Bryan’s grandmother tell him about hearing sounds of misery, suffering, and sadness? Are you listening to those sounds too? Are you motivated to help?
· Why was there a mass migration by African-Americans from the South to the North after the Civil War?
· What does it mean to be an agent of change? Bryan Stephenson says he is broken. Are all of us broken?
· Notice that in 1972 there were 300,000 people incarcerated in the United States. Today there are 2.2 million. Why do you think that is?
· What do you think of the Legacy Museum and how can that help other people to understand how many lives were lost to lynchings?
· What does Bryan say is the root of a “consciousness of racism”? What does that have to do with the Dred Scott decision?
Notes and Reflections: use the space below to record your own feelings and reflections about this important subject.
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