For a country still grappling with the effects of slavery and racism, this is going to be a necessary, albeit hard, road to walk. “We want truth and justice, but those things are sequential. You’ve got to tell the truth before you get to the justice, before you get to the repair.”
For his own inspiration in the face of the daunting tasks he faces on a daily basis, Stevenson looks to the examples of people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Johnnie Carr. These people believed in redemption rather than revenge, Stevenson says. “If they can say my head is bloodied but not bowed, then I can say there is a way forward that’s better than hate, that’s better than revenge, that’s better than violence. I want to represent that. I want to model that.”
When asked if he sees himself and his work as being similar to that of King and Parks, Stevenson deflects such a compliment. “Those folks did so much more with so much less…I see myself as the beneficiary of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr. They created the space for me to be a practicing lawyer.”
Stevenson also has a lot of hope for the work he’s doing. “I actually think there’s something better waiting for us. I think there’s something that feels more like freedom, that feels more like equality, that feels more like justice waiting for us in this country. But we cannot claim it, we cannot achieve it if we continue with this self-deception that is created by lying about the history of slavery and lynching, romanticizing the past.” He points to the example of how society has changed its mind and practice regarding sexual abuse. Stevenson says telling the stories of people who have suffered under unjust circumstances “is key to some of that change.”
Perhaps this is why he agreed to his story being turned into a feature film.
Willing to Do What It Takes
“I prefer working behind the scenes; I like anonymity,” Stevenson said. At the same time, though, he is willing to sacrifice that desire for anonymity to get the conversation going. “I want to do what it takes to get the kind of conversation that we desperately need to have in this country to take place when it comes to criminal justice reform [and] racial injustice.”
Foxx, who told Stephen Colbert that when Just Mercy was screened at the Toronto film festival, it received an 8-minute standing ovation, believes the film can get that conversation started. “Sometimes it takes the art to open our eyes to what’s going on,” he says. “Art has become the vehicle to get the truth out.”
