We need to talk about an injustice

In an engaging and personal talk -- with cameo appearances from his grandmother and Rosa Parks -- human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's Black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. These issues, which are wrapped up in America's unexamined history, are rarely talked about with this level of candor, insight and persuasiveness.

Well, this is a really
extraordinary honor for me.

I spend most of my time in jails,
in prisons, on death row.

I spend most of my time
in very low-income communities,

in the projects and places where
there's a great deal of hopelessness.

And being here at TED
and seeing the stimulation, hearing it,

has been very, very energizing to me.

And one of the things that's emerged
in my short time here

is that TED has an identity.

And you can actually say things here
that have impacts around the world.

And sometimes when it comes through TED,
it has meaning and power

that it doesn't have when it doesn't.

And I mention that because I think
identity is really important.

And we've had some
fantastic presentations.

And I think what we've learned
is that, if you're a teacher,

your words can be meaningful,

but if you're a compassionate teacher,
they can be especially meaningful.

If you're a doctor,
you can do some good things,

but if you're a caring doctor,
you can do some other things.

So I want to talk about
the power of identity.

And I didn't learn about this
actually practicing law

and doing the work that I do.

I actually learned about this
from my grandmother.

I grew up in a house that was
the traditional African American home

that was dominated by a matriarch,

and that matriarch was my grandmother.

She was tough, she was strong,
she was powerful.

She was the end
of every argument in our family.

(Laughter)

She was the beginning
of a lot of arguments in our family.

(Laughter)

She was the daughter of people
who were actually enslaved.

Her parents were born in slavery
in Virginia in the 1840s.

She was born in the 1880s,

and the experience of slavery

very much shaped
the way she saw the world.

And my grandmother was tough,
but she was also loving.

When I would see her as a little boy,

she'd come up to me
and give me these hugs.

And she'd squeeze me so tight
I could barely breathe,

and then she'd let me go.

And an hour or two later, if I saw her,

she'd come over to me and say,
"Bryan, do you still feel me hugging you?"

If I said, "No," she'd assault me again,

and if I said, "Yes,"
she'd leave me alone.

And she just had this quality
that you always wanted to be near her.

And the only challenge
was that she had 10 children.

My mom was the youngest of her 10 kids.

And sometimes when I would go
and spend time with her,

it would be difficult to get
her time and attention.

My cousins would be
running around everywhere.

And I remember, when I was
about eight or nine years old,

waking up one morning,
going into the living room,

and all of my cousins were running around.

And my grandmother
was sitting across the room,

staring at me.

And at first, I thought
we were playing a game.

And I would look at her, and I'd smile,
but she was very serious.

And after about 15 or 20 minutes of this,

she got up and she came across the room,

and she took me by the hand,

and she said, "Come on, Bryan.
You and I are going to have a talk."

And I remember this
just like it happened yesterday.

I never will forget it.

She took me out back and said,
"Bryan, I'm going to tell you something,

but you don't tell anybody
what I tell you."

I said, "OK, Mama."

She said, "Now, you make sure
you don't do that."

I said, "Sure."

Then she sat me down and she looked at me,

and she said, "I want you to know
I've been watching you."

And she said, "I think you're special."

She said, "I think you can do
anything you want to do."

I will never forget it.

And then she said, "I just need you
to promise me three things, Bryan."

I said, "OK, Mama."

She said, "The first thing
I want you to promise me

is that you'll always love your mom."

She said, "That's my baby girl,

and you have to promise me now
you'll always take care of her."

Well, I adored my mom,
so I said, "Yes, Mama. I'll do that."

Then she said, "The second thing
I want you to promise me

is that you'll always do the right thing,

even when the right thing
is the hard thing."

And I thought about it, and I said,
"Yes, Mama. I'll do that."

Then finally, she said, "The third thing
I want you to promise me

is that you'll never drink alcohol."

(Laughter)

Well, I was nine years old,
so I said, "Yes, Mama. I'll do that."

I grew up in the country
in the rural South,

and I have a brother a year older than me
and a sister a year younger.

When I was about 14 or 15,

one day, my brother came home
and he had this six-pack of beer;

I don't know where he got it.

He grabbed me and my sister,
and we went out in the woods,

and we were just out there
doing the stuff we crazily did,

and he had a sip of this beer
and gave some to my sister

and she had some,
and they offered it to me.

I said, "No, that's OK. Y'all go ahead.
I'm not going to have any."

My brother said, "Come on. We're doing
this today; you always do what we do.

I had some, your sister had some.
Have some beer."

I said, "No, I don't feel right
about that. Y'all go ahead."

And then my brother stared at me and said,
"What's wrong with you? Have some beer."

Then he looked at me real hard and said,

"Oh, I hope you're not still hung up on
that conversation Mama had with you."

(Laughter)

I said, "What are you talking about?"

He said, "Oh, Mama tells
all the grandkids that they're special."

(Laughter)

I was devastated.

(Laughter)

And I'm going to admit something to you.

I'm going to tell you something
I probably shouldn't.

I know this might be broadcast broadly.

But I'm 52 years old,

and I'm going to admit to you

that I've never had a drop of alcohol.

(Applause)

I don't say that because
I think that's virtuous;

I say that because
there is power in identity.

When we create the right kind of identity,

we can say things to the world around us

that they don't actually
believe make sense.

We can get them to do things
that they don't think they can do.

When I thought about my grandmother,

of course she would think
all her grandkids were special.

My grandfather was in prison
during prohibition.

My male uncles died
of alcohol-related diseases.

And these were the things
she thought we needed to commit to.

Well, I've been trying to say something
about our criminal justice system.

This country is very different today
than it was 40 years ago.

In 1972, there were 300,000 people
in jails and prisons.

Today, there are 2.3 million.

The United States now has
the highest rate of incarceration

in the world.

We have seven million people
on probation and parole.

And mass incarceration, in my judgment,

has fundamentally changed our world.

In poor communities,
in communities of color,

there is this despair,

there is this hopelessness

that is being shaped by these outcomes.

One out of three Black men
between the ages of 18 and 30

is in jail, in prison,
on probation or parole.

In urban communities
across this country --

Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Washington --

50 to 60 percent of all young men of color

are in jail or prison

or on probation or parole.

Our system isn't just
being shaped in these ways

that seem to be distorting around race,

they're also distorted by poverty.

We have a system of justice
in this country

that treats you much better
if you're rich and guilty

than if you're poor and innocent.

Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes.

And yet, we seem to be very comfortable.

The politics of fear and anger
have made us believe

that these are problems
that are not our problems.

We've been disconnected.

It's interesting to me.

We're looking at some very interesting
developments in our work.

My state of Alabama,
like a number of states,

actually permanently disenfranchises you
if you have a criminal conviction.

Right now in Alabama,

34 percent of the Black male population
has permanently lost the right to vote.

We're actually projecting
that in another 10 years,

the level of disenfranchisement
will be as high as it's been

since prior to the passage
of the Voting Rights Act.

And there is this stunning silence.

I represent children.

A lot of my clients are very young.

The United States
is the only country in the world

where we sentence 13-year-old children

to die in prison.

We have life imprisonment without parole
for kids in this country.

And we're actually doing some litigation.

The only country in the world.

I represent people on death row.

It's interesting, this question
of the death penalty.

In many ways, we've been taught to think
that the real question is:

Do people deserve to die
for the crimes they've committed?

And that's a very sensible question.

But there's another way of thinking
about where we are in our identity.

The other way of thinking about it is not:

Do people deserve to die
for the crimes they commit?,

but: Do we deserve to kill?

I mean, it's fascinating.

Death penalty in America
is defined by error.

For every nine people
who have been executed,

we've actually identified
one innocent person

who's been exonerated
and released from death row.

A kind of astonishing error rate --

one out of nine people, innocent.

I mean, it's fascinating.

In aviation, we would never
let people fly on airplanes

if, for every nine planes that took off,

one would crash.

(Laughter)

But somehow, we can insulate ourselves
from this problem.

It's not our problem.

It's not our burden.

It's not our struggle.

I talk a lot about these issues.

I talk about race

and this question
of whether we deserve to kill.

And it's interesting,

when I teach my students
about African American history,

I tell them about slavery.

I tell them about terrorism,

the era that began
at the end of reconstruction

that went on to World War II.

We don't really know very much about it.

But for African Americans in this country,

that was an era defined by terror.

In many communities,
people had to worry about being lynched.

They had to worry about being bombed.

It was the threat of terror
that shaped their lives.

And these older people
come up to me now and say,

"Mr. Stevenson, you give talks,
you make speeches,

you tell people to stop saying
we're dealing with terrorism

for the first time
in our nation's history after 9/11."

They tell me to say, "No, tell
them that we grew up with that."

And that era of terrorism, of course,
was followed by segregation

and decades of racial subordination

and apartheid.

And yet, we have in this country

this dynamic where we really don't like
to talk about our problems.

We don't like to talk about our history.

And because of that,
we really haven't understood

what it's meant to do the things
we've done historically.

We're constantly running into each other.

We're constantly creating
tensions and conflicts.

We have a hard time talking about race,

and I believe it's because we are
unwilling to commit ourselves

to a process of truth and reconciliation.

In South Africa,

people understood
that we couldn't overcome apartheid

without a commitment
to truth and reconciliation.

In Rwanda, even after the genocide,
there was this commitment.

But in this country, we haven't done that.

I was giving some lectures in Germany
about the death penalty.

It was fascinating,

because one of the scholars
stood up after the presentation

and said, "Well, you know,
it's deeply troubling

to hear what you're talking about."

He said, "We don't have
the death penalty in Germany,

and of course, we can never
have the death penalty in Germany."

And the room got very quiet,

and this woman said,

"There's no way, with our history,

we could ever engage
in the systematic killing of human beings.

It would be unconscionable for us

to, in an intentional and deliberate way,

set about executing people."

And I thought about that.

What would it feel like
to be living in a world

where the nation-state of Germany
was executing people,

especially if they were
disproportionately Jewish?

I couldn't bear it.

It would be unconscionable.

And yet, in this country,

in the states of the Old South,

we execute people --

where you're 11 times more likely
to get the death penalty

if the victim is white
than if the victim is Black,

22 times more likely to get it

if the defendant is Black
and the victim is white --

in the very states where there are,
buried in the ground,

the bodies of people who were lynched.

And yet, there is this disconnect.

Well, I believe
that our identity is at risk,

that when we actually don't care
about these difficult things,

the positive and wonderful things
are nonetheless implicated.

We love innovation.

We love technology. We love creativity.

We love entertainment.

But ultimately,

those realities are shadowed by suffering,

abuse, degradation,

marginalization.

And for me, it becomes necessary
to integrate the two,

because ultimately, we are talking about
a need to be more hopeful,

more committed, more dedicated

to the basic challenges
of living in a complex world.

And for me, that means

spending time thinking and talking
about the poor, the disadvantaged,

those who will never get to TED,

but thinking about them in a way
that is integrated in our own lives.

You know, ultimately, we all
have to believe things we haven't seen.

We do.

As rational as we are,
as committed to intellect as we are,

innovation, creativity, development

comes not from the ideas
in our mind alone.

They come from the ideas in our mind

that are also fueled
by some conviction in our heart.

And it's that mind-heart connection
that I believe compels us

to not just be attentive
to all the bright and dazzly things,

but also the dark and difficult things.

Václav Havel, the great Czech leader,
talked about this.

He said, "When we were in Eastern Europe
and dealing with oppression,

we wanted all kinds of things.

But mostly what we needed was hope,

an orientation of the spirit,

a willingness to sometimes
be in hopeless places

and be a witness."

Well, that orientation of the spirit
is very much at the core of what I believe

even TED communities
have to be engaged in.

There is no disconnect
around technology and design

that will allow us to be fully human

until we pay attention to suffering,

to poverty, to exclusion,
to unfairness, to injustice.

Now, I will warn you

that this kind of identity
is a much more challenging identity

than ones that don't
pay attention to this.

It will get to you.

I had the great privilege,
when I was a young lawyer,

of meeting Rosa Parks.

And Ms. Parks used to come back
to Montgomery every now and then,

and she would get together
with two of her dearest friends,

these older women,

Johnnie Carr, who was the organizer
of the Montgomery bus boycott --

amazing African American woman --

and Virginia Durr, a white woman,

whose husband, Clifford Durr,
represented Dr. King.

And these women
would get together and just talk.

And every now and then
Ms. Carr would call me,

and she'd say, "Bryan,
Ms. Parks is coming to town.

We're going to get together and talk.
Do you want to come over and listen?"

And I'd say, "Yes, ma'am, I do."

She'd say, "What are you going to do
when you get here?"

I said, "I'm going to listen."

And I'd go over there
and I would, I'd just listen.

It would be so energizing
and so empowering.

And one time I was over there
listening to these women talk,

and after a couple of hours,
Ms. Parks turned to me and said,

"Bryan, tell me what
the Equal Justice Initiative is.

Tell me what you're trying to do."

And I began giving her my rap.

"We're trying to challenge injustice.

We're trying to help people
who have been wrongly convicted.

We're trying to confront
bias and discrimination

in the administration of criminal justice.

We're trying to end life without parole
sentences for children.

We're trying to do something
about the death penalty.

We're trying to reduce
the prison population.

We're trying to end mass incarceration."

I gave her my whole rap,
and when I finished she looked at me

and she said, "Mmm mmm mmm.

That's going to make
you tired, tired, tired."

(Laughter)

And that's when Ms. Carr leaned forward,
she put her finger in my face,

she said, "That's why you've got to be
brave, brave, brave."

And I actually believe
that the TED community

needs to be more courageous.

We need to find ways
to embrace these challenges,

these problems, the suffering.

Because ultimately, our humanity
depends on everyone's humanity.

I've learned very simple things
doing the work that I do.

It's just taught me very simple things.

I've come to understand and to believe

that each of us is more
than the worst thing we've ever done.

I believe that
for every person on the planet.

I think if somebody tells a lie,
they're not just a liar.

I think if somebody takes something
that doesn't belong to them,

they're not just a thief.

I think even if you kill someone,
you're not just a killer.

And because of that,
there's this basic human dignity

that must be respected by law.

I also believe

that in many parts of this country,

and certainly in many parts of this globe,

that the opposite of poverty
is not wealth.

I don't believe that.

I actually think, in too many places,

the opposite of poverty is justice.

And finally, I believe

that, despite the fact that it is
so dramatic and so beautiful

and so inspiring and so stimulating,

we will ultimately not be judged
by our technology,

we won't be judged by our design,

we won't be judged
by our intellect and reason.

Ultimately, you judge
the character of a society

not by how they treat their rich
and the powerful and the privileged,

but by how they treat the poor,

the condemned,

the incarcerated.

Because it's in that nexus

that we actually begin to understand
truly profound things

about who we are.

I sometimes get out of balance.

I'll end with this story.

I sometimes push too hard.

I do get tired, as we all do.

Sometimes those ideas
get ahead of our thinking

in ways that are important.

And I've been representing these kids

who have been sentenced
to these very harsh sentences.

And I go to the jail and I see
my client, who's 13 and 14,

and he's been certified
to stand trial as an adult.

I start thinking, well,
how did that happen?

How can a judge turn you
into something that you're not?

And the judge has certified him
as an adult, but I see this kid.

And I was up too late one night
and I started thinking,

well, if the judge can turn you
into something you're not,

the judge must have magic power.

Yeah, Bryan, the judge
has some magic power.

You should ask for some of that.

And because I was up too late
and wasn't thinking real straight,

I started working on a motion.

I had a client who was 14 years old,
a young, poor Black kid.

And I started working on this motion,
and the head of the motion was:

"Motion to try my poor,
14-year-old Black male client

like a privileged, white,
75-year-old corporate executive."

(Laughter)

(Applause and cheers)

And I put in my motion
that there was prosecutorial misconduct

and police misconduct
and judicial misconduct.

There was a crazy line in there

about how there's no conduct
in this county, it's all misconduct.

And the next morning,
I woke up and I thought,

now, did I dream that crazy motion,
or did I actually write it?

And to my horror,
not only had I written it,

but I had sent it to court.

(Applause)

A couple months went by,

and I just had forgotten all about it.

And I finally decided,

"Gosh, I've got to go to the court
and do this crazy case."

And I got in my car, and I was feeling
really overwhelmed -- overwhelmed.

And I got in my car
and went to this courthouse.

And I was thinking, this is going
to be so difficult, so painful.

And I finally got out of the car
and started walking up to the courthouse.

And as I was walking up the steps,

there was an older Black man
who was the janitor in this courthouse.

When this man saw me, he came over
and said, "Who are you?"

I said, "I'm a lawyer." He said,
"You're a lawyer?" I said, "Yes, sir."

And this man came over to me,
and he hugged me.

And he whispered in my ear.

He said, "I'm so proud of you."

And I have to tell you, it was energizing.

It connected deeply with something in me

about identity,

about the capacity of every person
to contribute to community,

to a perspective that is hopeful.

Well, I went into the courtroom.

And as soon as I walked in,
the judge saw me coming.

He said, "Mr. Stevenson,
did you write this crazy motion?"

I said, "Yes, sir. I did."
And we started arguing.

And people started coming in,

just outraged
I'd written these crazy things.

And police officers were coming in

and assistant prosecutors
and clerk workers.

Before I knew it,
the courtroom was filled with people

angry that we were talking about race,

that we were talking about poverty,
talking about inequality.

And out of the corner of my eye, I could
see this janitor pacing back and forth.

He kept looking through the window
and could hear all the holler.

And finally, this older Black man
with a very worried look on his face

came into the courtroom and sat behind me,
almost at counsel table.

Ten minutes later,
the judge said we'd take a break.

During the break, there was
a deputy sheriff who was offended

that the janitor had come into court.

The deputy jumped up
and ran over to this older Black man.

He said, "Jimmy, what are you doing
in this courtroom?"

And this older Black man stood up
and looked at that deputy

and he looked at me,

and he said, "I came into this courtroom
to tell this young man,

'Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.'"

I've come to TED

because I believe
that many of you understand

that the moral arc
of the universe is long,

but it bends toward justice;

that we cannot be
full, evolved human beings

until we care about human rights
and basic dignity;

that all of our survival
is tied to the survival of everyone;

that our visions of technology and design

and entertainment and creativity

have to be married with visions
of humanity, compassion and justice.

And more than anything,
for those of you who share that,

I've simply come to tell you

to keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Thank you very much.

(Applause and cheers)

Chris Anderson: Brian,
so you heard and saw

an obvious desire
by this audience, this community,

to help you on your way
and to do something on this issue.

Other than writing a check,

what could we do?

BS: Well, there are
opportunities all around us.

If you live in the state
of California, for example,

there's a referendum coming up this spring

where there's going to be an effort
to redirect some of the money we spend

on the politics of punishment.

For example, here in California,

we're going to spend one billion dollars

on the death penalty
in the next five years --

one billion dollars.

And yet, 46 percent of all homicide cases
don't result in arrest,

56 percent of all rape cases don't result.

So there's an opportunity to change that.

And this referendum would propose

having those dollars go to
law enforcement and safety.

And I think that opportunity
exists all around us.

CA: There's been this huge decline
in crime in America

over the last three decades.

And part of the narrative of that

is sometimes that it's about increased
incarceration rates.

What would you say to someone
who believed that?

BS: Well, actually, the violent crime rate
has remained relatively stable.

The great increase
in mass incarceration in this country

wasn't really in violent crime categories.

It was this misguided war on drugs.

That's where the dramatic
increases have come

in our prison population.

(Applause)

And we got carried away
with the rhetoric of punishment.

And so we have "Three Strikes" laws

that put people in prison forever

for stealing a bicycle,
for low-level property crimes,

rather than making them
give those resources back

to the people who they victimized.

I believe we need to do more

to help people
who are victimized by crime,

not do less.

And I think our current
punishment philosophy

does nothing for no one.

And I think that's the orientation
that we have to change.

(Applause)

CA: Bryan, you've struck
a massive chord here.

You're an inspiring person.

Thank you so much
for coming to TED. Thank you.

(Applause and cheers)

BS: Thank you. Thank you.

(Applause and cheers)