Rewriting the Story of Civil Rights
Confronting racist history at a new lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.
What does it mean to “change a narrative?” Bryan Stevenson has been insisting on the importance of changing the narrative on criminal justice since he published his best-selling book, “Just Mercy”, in 2014. He’s a death penalty lawyer who likes to say, “We have a system of justice that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent.”
The notion that locking up more bad guys makes us safer that I attended in Montgomery, Alabama, last week, has chosen a more revolutionary approach to fixing criminal justice than the skilful lawyering for which he’s well known. He is rewriting the history of the civil rights movement.
