WEBVTT - Can one person change the criminal justice system? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.280 Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of I 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.760 Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:11.360 Curic and welcome to Next Question Today civil rights lawyer 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.680 and activist Brian Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. If 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.160 I've had any impact as a lawyer, if I've helped 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.640 anybody during my legal career, if I've made a difference 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.640 of representing my clients, it's not because I'm hard working, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.759 it's not because I'm smart or anything like that. It's 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.080 because I got proximate to a condemned man and heard 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.040 him sing about higher ground. And that's why I talked 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.840 about proximity, because I think there's power when we get 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.879 close to the poor and excluded in the condemned. There's knowledge, 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:43.120 there's wisdom, there's insight, there's inspiration, there are portals that 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.320 can change the world. And later I'll speak with the 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.240 man who plays Brian in the new movie Just Mercy, 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:53.320 Michael b Jordan's and Jamie Fox, who portrays the client 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:57.600 whose case put Brian Stevenson on the map. Brian Stevenson 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.360 has been fighting this fight in the shadows for years, 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.320 so that's why this movie is so important. My next question, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.360 what made the real Brian Stevenson the man he is today. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.640 I recently had the privilege of interviewing Brian, one of 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.039 my personal heroes, at a dinner for the Aspen Institute 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.559 in New York City. Hi, everyone, good evening, It's such 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.040 an I began by asking him about his childhood. He 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:26.360 grew up in a small rural town in southern Delaware, poor, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.200 isolated and marginalized, but surrounded by family that taught him 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.560 the values that have guided him his entire life. I 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:37.520 was born at the end of the Jim Crow era, 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.560 but you could still see the signs that said white 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.480 and color. And I watched my parents trying to shield 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.800 me from that. I mean, we don't realize that that 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.880 signage wasn't They weren't directions, They were actually assaults. They 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.640 created real injuries. My parents were humiliated every day of 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.480 their lives, and yet they had enough hope that they 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.240 actually believed that they could raise us to enter a 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.480 world that would be better and more just. And I 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.320 think it was that sense that you have to believe 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:11.240 things you haven't seen that I was constantly being taught. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.840 You know, I was a young person and I became 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.440 a church musician, and when I first started to play, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:19.760 you know, they didn't want me to play during the services. 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.720 I had to play during the testimonial and people would 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.320 come in and they'd give their testimonies, and sometimes they'd 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.560 say these heartbreaking they tell these heartbreaking stories about what 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.440 had happened. They didn't have a food to feed their family, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.600 or something had happened and something terrible. But during those 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.400 testimony services, they would always in their testimony by starting 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.960 to sing a song. They'd start singing something like wouldn't 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.720 take nothing for my journey now, And there was this 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.800 hopefulness And I think for me, that has been the 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:51.800 greatest gift. I live in Montgomery, Alabama now, and I 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.560 think about the people who were there sixty years ago 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.359 trying to do what I do, and I realized I'm 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.000 standing on their shoulders, and they did so much more, 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.720 so much less. One of the people who did so 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.880 much more was so much less was Brian's grandmother, a 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.919 woman who was born in the eighteen eighties in Virginia, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.720 who had ten children and was the matriarch of the family. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.280 She was tough and strong, but Brian says her love 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.200 was so expansive that she had a way of making 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:26.600 each of her grandchildren feel special and seen. My grandmother 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.880 was the daughter of people who were enslaved. Her parents 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.720 were born in slavery. My great grandfather learned to read 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.480 as an enslaved person, even though he knew he might 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.560 be sold or even injured, because he had that skill. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.720 And she would talk about how when emancipation came, all 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.640 of the uh formerly enslaved people would come to their 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:47.960 house and he would read the newspaper every night, and 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.240 she would sit next to him, and she would be 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.400 so proud that he had that ability. And even though 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.400 she couldn't go to school, she learned to read, and 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.120 she taught her daughter, my mom, how to read. And 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.440 we were poor and we didn't always have the things 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.400 that we needed. But my mother went into debt to 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.280 buy the World Book Encyclopedia because she wanted us to 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.840 have this entry into the world. And when you see 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:12.520 people making those kinds of sacrifices, affirming those kinds of values, 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.960 it sustained you. It energizes you. And then the last thing, 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.520 my my, I feel really fortunate to have been given 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.320 was a commitment to loving people. My my, my grandmother 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.840 told me, always stay on the side of love, even 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.960 when people treat you bad, even when people hate you, 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.359 even when people mistreat you. You have to stay on 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.279 the side of love because once you leave the side 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.760 of love, you give away the most important parts of yourself. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.159 You become vulnerable to all of those emotions that will 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.919 destroy you. So you have to stay on the side 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:46.160 of love. My people, my parents, my grandparents, despite the 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.719 brutality and the mistreatment, didn't hate anybody. And it's a 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:51.599 precious gift that they have given me. And I've tried 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:53.400 to hold on to that gift, and it's the gift 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.279 I want to give to my clients and the people 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.800 I work with, and it has very much centered the 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:01.000 work that I've done throughout my career. So both hope 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.680 and love, hope and law. Yeah, and you would think 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.240 that a little eight year old Brian Stevenson knew he 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.640 wanted to be a public interest lawyer, you know, but 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:11.799 you didn't actually figure that out for quite a while. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.280 You went to Harvard Law School, but you weren't particularly 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.760 jazzed about going and once you got there, you really 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.240 felt like an outsider. So at what point did you 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.840 feel like this is my calling, this is where I'm 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.000 going to commit my time and energy. Yeah, I mean 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.279 it was funny. I was so excited because nobody in 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.279 my family had gone to college. I was so excited 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.400 just to be in college, and I didn't think much 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.200 about what came next. And I was a philosophy major. 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:40.400 And it was really at the beginning of my senior 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.320 year that somebody came up to me and said, you know, 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.360 nobody is going to pay you to philosophize when you 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.840 graduated from college. And to be honest, that's how I 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.920 found my way to law school. It was very clear 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:51.440 to me, you don't need to know anything to go 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.040 to law school, you know. Uh, And so I signed 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.440 up for that. But I didn't have a real appreciation 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.880 of what lawyers did. I didn't I'd never met a 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.440 lawyer until I got to law school. And it was 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.320 very disoriented because I was concerned about racial inequality and 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.479 social injustice, and it just didn't feel connected to the 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.279 things I cared about, and I was really in the 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:18.440 middle of this kind of existential angst. Everything changed in 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.520 when Brian took a course that required him to spend 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.719 a month with a human rights organization providing legal services 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.360 to people on death row. He headed down to Atlanta 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.040 and into the prison system, and it was that experience 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.440 that really became transformative. I I went to death row, 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.080 I met people literally dying for legal assistance, and I 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.000 write about this in my book. The first person I 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.080 met was this condemned man. I had just been sent 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.320 down there to tell him that he wasn't at risk 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.360 of execution. And when this man came into the room, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.960 he was burdened with change. He had handcuffs on his wrist, 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:56.679 he had a chain around his waist, he had shackles 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.360 on his ankles, and by the time they unchained him, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.320 I was so nervous. I just started apologizing and I said, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.160 I'm so sorry. I'm just a law student. I don't 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.159 know anything about the death mod And I finally said, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.720 but I'm here because you're not at risk of execution 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.120 any time in the next year. And he was so 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.600 stunned by that statement. He said, wait, say that again. 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.320 And I said, you're not at risk of execution any 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.120 time in the next year. And then he said, wait, wait, wait, wait, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.640 say that again. I said, you're not at risk of 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:26.760 execution any time in the next year. And this man 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.440 grabbed my hands and he said, thank you, thank you, 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.400 thank you. Said, you are the first person I've met 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.440 in the two years i've been on death row who's 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.280 not a death row prisoner or a death row guard. 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.600 He said, I've been talking to my wife and my kids, 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.440 but I haven't let them come and visit because I 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.520 was afraid i'd have an execution date. He said, now, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.200 because of you, I'm going to see my wife. I'm 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.640 going to see my kids. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.960 And I couldn't believe how, even in my ignorance, being 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.600 proximate to that man was so transformative. And we started talking. 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.080 And one hour turned into two hours, and two hours 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.120 turned into three hours, and the guards were waiting for 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.280 me to finish, and they got angry that I didn't 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.200 finish the visit after an hour, and they came bursting 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.160 into the room and they couldn't do anything to me, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.160 but they were mad. And they threw this man against 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.160 the wall and they pulled his arms back and they 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.520 put the handcuffs on his wrist so tightly I could 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.480 see the metal pinching his skin. They wrapped the chain 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:17.560 around his waist. They put the shackles on his ankles. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.280 They were treating him so roughly, and I begged them 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.720 to be gentler, but they ignored me, and they pushed 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.480 the man near the door. And when he got near 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.520 the door, I saw this condemnment planted his feet. And 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:29.840 when he planted his feet and the guards tried to 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.480 shove him, he didn't move. And that's when this man 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.400 looked at me and he said, Brian, don't you worry 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.800 about this, You just come back. And then that man 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.160 did something I've never forgotten. He stood there and he 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.440 closed his eyes and he threw his head back and 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.640 he started to sing, and he started singing as hymn 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.280 I hadn't heard. He started singing, I'm pressing on the 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.800 upward way, new heights, time gaining every day, still praying 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.080 as I'm onward bound. And then he said, Lord, plant 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.600 my feet on higher ground. And everybody stopped. The guards recovered. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:00.680 They started pushing him down the hall way, and you 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:02.600 could hear the change claiming, but you could hear this 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.920 man singing about higher ground. And when I heard that 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.199 man sing, everything changed for me. That was the moment 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.160 that I knew I wanted to help condemned people get 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.280 to higher ground. But more than that, I knew that 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.920 my journey to higher ground was tied to his. And 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.679 I went back to Harvard Law School completely radicalized. You 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.520 couldn't get me out of the law school library. I 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.880 needed to know everything about federalism and comedy and the 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.080 doctor in the jurisprudence. And that's how it happened for me. 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.320 I went to death Row and I met a condemned 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.840 man and he sang to me, and it changed my orientation, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.160 It changed my path, it changed my life. Let's talk 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.839 about Just Mercy just for a moment, because it's coming 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.559 out on December, and of course that is the case 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.440 at the center of the your two thousand fourteen book, 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.400 when you defended Walter McMillan played I think so incredibly. 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.840 I was lucky enough to see the film Jamie Fox, 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.000 and I thought he did an amazing job. Michael B. 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:57.640 Jordan of course plays you. How weird was that to 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:02.400 watch that? It's pretty weird? Um, you know, I'm just 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:04.720 I'm really I feel really good about the film. I 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:09.600 was very apprehensive because Hollywood oftentimes will take a story 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.840 and they'll do something formulaic, and I didn't want that 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.280 to happen. But Michael B who's a producer on the film, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.720 was really committed to doing it right. The director, Deston 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.000 Creton was also committed, and the whole cast came together 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.920 and we're really committed to doing this in a way 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.320 that would honor the people that I've represented. And they 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:29.520 really put their heart into it, and I feel really 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.760 good about the film. Why are you doing this? Why 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:34.920 am my lawyer? I don't know why? As you lowering 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.240 it down here in Alabama taking these cases that ain't 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.040 nobody gonna pay you for. When I was a teenager, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.160 my grandfather was murdering over a black and white TV. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.320 We kept waiting for someone to show up to help. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.520 And that's when I realized that outside my community, nobody 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.280 cared because to them, he's just another black man killed 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:07.120 in the projects. I know what it's like to be 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:11.120 in the shadows. It is surreal, uh, to to have 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.200 a film come out and and and Michael B is 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:18.440 obviously so so popular and so wonderful, and and he 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.920 was very committed. We spent a lot of time together 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.320 and I just wanted to do everything he could to 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.760 get it right. And he asked me, is that, Is 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.440 there anything I need to do to kind of get ready? 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:30.680 I said, no, you've got it. I said, there's just 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.080 one thing you don't need to do. And I told 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.360 him the one thing you don't need to do is 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:40.240 to lose the black panther creed body when you play me. Uh. Uh, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.720 you should keep don't go on a lawyer diet, don't 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.480 try to you know. Uh and so uh and so 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.439 I appreciate him holding on to all of those assets 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.559 that he brings his other roles. Uh. But no, it's 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:55.520 it's been great and I'm really excited for people to 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.040 see the film, and for me, it's just a way 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.000 of getting people exposed to these issues. I've always believed 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.560 that if people saw what I see on a regular basis, 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.520 they would respond the same way. And I when you 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.480 see unfairness and abuse in this conduct, people have an 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.720 instinct to respond to that. We just have not been 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.880 exposed to it, and I hope the film changes that. 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.600 It is a case study and persistence. When you represented 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:22.480 Walter McMillan, I mean it was years of injustice that 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.760 he had to deal with, and and of all places, Monroeville, Alabama, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.600 the birth where Harperle and Truman Capode grew up. Of course, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.960 the setting for To Kill a mocking Bird that must 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:37.480 have been strange too. It is and I think one 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.360 of the reason why I focused on that case in 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.080 the book because I do think there's an irony in 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.800 the way we tell stories about who we are, and 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.280 there's a disconnect. And people love the story of To 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:53.480 Kill a mocking it's a beautiful book, and yet and yet, uh, 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:55.680 there's a truth that we haven't dealt with. You know, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.559 the character in that story, Tom Robinson, dies of hopelessness. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.160 He doesn't get justice. And we probably have about two 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.600 hundred awards in this country that are named after the 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:09.080 fictional lawyer Atticus Finch. And the question becomes, what are 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.040 we celebrating because we didn't achieve justice for the poor, 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.040 We didn't achieve justice for the person who was condemned. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.080 And it's not enough to just try in a world 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:23.760 where justice requires something more. And I think that's the disconnect. 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.760 And when I went to Monroeville and started working on 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.920 this case, everybody would say, oh, have you been to 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.040 the Killa mocking Bird Museum? And I would say, well, no, 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.080 I haven't had time because I'm representing this innocent black 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.040 man who's been wrongly convicted in this facing execution and 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.600 I'm trying to help him. And they said, well, you 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:42.080 need to go to the Dikilamdian Bird Museum. And we 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.480 have romanticized that story. While we have tolerated a criminal 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.560 justice system that treats you better if you're rich and 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.280 guilty then if you're poor and innocent, we have tolerated 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:56.719 racial bias, while we have celebrated this fictional characters resistance 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.640 to some of that bias, but not their effectiveness and 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:03.839 confern that bias and breaking down that kind of romanticized 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.600 narrative and actually engaging with the actual story for me 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.360 has been really important because we won't get to justice 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.920 if we live in this fantasy world, in this romanticized 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.559 world that is so evident in many places in this country. 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.280 When we come back the actual story of Walter McMillan, 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.960 as told in the new film Just Mercy, we'll talk 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:36.320 with Jamie Fox and Michael B. Jordan's. The movie Just 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.160 Mercy is based on Brian Stephenson's memoir. It tells the 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.240 story of a black man in Alabama named Walter McMillan, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.600 wrongfully convicted of killing a white woman he didn't know 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.920 in a town he'd never been to. Despite the egregious 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:57.320 lack of evidence, in McMillan was sentenced to death risk 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.600 one from Harp. You don't know what it is, and 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:06.400 you're guilty from the moment you're borne. And you can 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.320 buddy up with these white folks and make him laugh 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.680 and try to make him like you whatever that is, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:12.880 and he say, yes, no man, But when it's your turn, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.800 they ain't got to have no fingerprints, no where evidence 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.600 and all the witness that God the whole thing up, 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.240 and none of that matter. When all y'all think is 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:33.080 is that look like a man who could kill somebody. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.080 Walter McMillan is played by Jamie Fox. It's so familiar 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.000 because as as black man, the perception of us is, yeah, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:48.200 he probably did it so easily. He's put on death 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.240 row with no trial. And there he sits in a 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.840 hopeless place because I visited death row before for another movie, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:57.800 and the worst thing you can give a person and 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.000 death row is is hope. And there he sits, and 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.520 as he sits, all of a sudden, he doesn't know 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:05.200 it at the time, but his Angel walks in and 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.480 as Brian Stevenson, played wonderfully by Michael B. Jordan in 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.880 the movie and Uh, they set out to do something remarkable. 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.000 Michael B. Jordan not only plays Brian Stevenson, the lawyer 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.600 who successfully overturned Walter McMillan's death sentence, but he's also 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.400 a producer on the film and had a big hand 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.480 in getting it financed. As a black man in America, 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.280 I thought it was really important to be involved at 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.400 the story. Learning about Brian Stevenson at such a late age, 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:34.800 I felt I was shocked that he wasn't more of 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.240 a household name. When I found out about his work, 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.360 had a chance to listening and watch his ted talk, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.920 read his memoir, I was blown away by the work 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.240 that he was doing behind closed doors without any real 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:48.920 true support. So I felt like I could lend myself 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.760 my platform, my medium to help telling the story and 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:54.840 getting his story out to the masses. The first time 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.160 I visited Death Row, I wasn't expecting to meet somebody 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:01.760 the same age as me, grew up on the same 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:06.639 music from a neighborhood just like ours. Could have been 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.600 me mama, but stepping into the role of his real 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:14.480 life hero Brian Stevenson, who's also soft spoken and restrained, 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.359 took a different set of acting skills for the Black 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.399 Panther star. I think emotionally, the positions that Brian Stephen 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.000 has been in throughout this movie, throughout his his time 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.040 as being a defense attorney, you know, especially in the the 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:33.000 Deep South, the obstacles he had to encounter, I naturally 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.359 would have reacted much different. So to know that he 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.400 is such a reserved person that he did take his 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.280 pride and his ego and put it to the side 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.360 for the betterment of his clients. Knowing that, you know him, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:50.840 emotionally reacting wouldn't wouldn't get anything done in that type 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.320 of way. So he's so strategic and it's so so 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.280 methodical and how he moves Uh. You know, it was 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.879 a challenge to go again sometimes your natural reaction at 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:03.040 the things uh and uh and and and play a 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:08.119 more reserved and right And you're right. He did it 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.640 because he knew that was the means to the end 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.520 he wanted to achieve. Meanwhile, how did Michael convince you 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.440 or did did it take any convincing? It was no convincing. 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.679 I've known Mike for for a long time. His mentor 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.760 I've watched and grow up. So I was humble and 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:27.680 honored to get that call from him. And there was 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.159 some personal things that we talked about. But the one 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.320 thing that I could tell you that in our business 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.520 is hard to find people that stand up people. And 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.400 he says, I want you to be in this film, 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.199 And basically he was giving my u my artistic integrity 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.280 back in a sense, and and I said, hey, I'm 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.720 in with both feet because I think, what what what 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:48.720 What I'll say about Michael b is that it's the 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:50.720 biggest start in the world and he could do anything 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.119 he wants to. But I think what was amazing, what 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.520 is amazing about his career is when he laid the 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.040 DNA of narratives like this in Fruitvale Station, where he 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.600 took all of our hearts and uh and emotions and 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.840 and just and just wild us. And then to take 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.480 that same narrative to the biggest movie ever, uh, Black Panther, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.960 where he plays kill Monger, which is supposedly the villain. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.240 But if you listen to what he was saying, even 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.920 as a villain, his narrative for us on the biggest stage, 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.399 We're still talking about our culture and what we needed. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.760 So now, to me, this completes an artistic sentence of 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.840 many paragraphs that he's gonna write. But Just Mercy is 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.359 the most important movie that I've ever been involved with 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.919 because of the fact of the introduction of Brian Stevenson. 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.680 Because Brian Stevenson says and deals with and talks about 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.120 every day everything that we everything that we talk about 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.399 on social media but don't know where to go. You know, 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:48.399 there'll be things where you're looking on social media and 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.240 you'll be so mad about I see this black team 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.680 or I see this person. These attrocities happens, and we'll 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.120 get on and we'll will comment about it. But this 0:19:57.200 --> 0:19:59.800 gives us an opportunity to come see a movie which 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:05.120 is not only art, uh, but it's educational. It's inspirational. 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.880 So much perspective, doesn't he Janie, He has so much 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.160 perspective and it's so listen. I get. I would get 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.879 upset when people would say about a black man that 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.520 he speaks so well, But then I found myself saying 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.439 this about Brian Steveson, that he speaks so well, but 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.919 not speaking so well. It's what he's saying. He's telling 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.199 us about our past. He's telling us about what we 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.479 need to get, what we need to get to, and 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:33.399 how how bad things are. But he's saying it in 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:37.800 a way that everyone could be inclusive. These events happened 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.960 thirty years ago, but against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.000 and I think a modern reckoning of all these issues 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.520 and the genesis of the problem, you must feel like 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:55.120 this is more relevant than ever before. To really explore 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.280 how we got here, and that's what I think Brian 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:02.760 does so beautifully. He kind of connects threads in history 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:09.360 from reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation to what is modern day 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.399 segregation really de facto segregation. What the thing is that 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.119 you can see it now. You know, years back we 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:18.040 don't have social media, and now you can actually go 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.560