Marshall Project interview with Bryan Stevenson on Charleston and Our Real Problem with Race

Bryan Stevenson, author of our October discussion book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, is a member of The Marshall Project's advisory board. He spoke with Corey Johnson in Opening Statement about the racially motivated shootings at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston in June. Here are a few excerpts:

" . . . I don't believe slavery ended in 1865, I believe it just evolved.

 . . . we are very confused when we start talking about race in this country because we think that things are 'of the past' because we don’t understand what these things really are, that narrative of racial difference that was created during slavery that resulted in terrorism and lynching, that humiliated, belittled and burdened African Americans throughout most of the 20th century. The same narrative of racial difference that got Michael Brown killed, got Eric Garner killed and got Tamir Rice killed. That got these thousands of others — of African Americans — wrongly accused, convicted and condemned. It is the same narrative that has denied opportunities and fair treatment to millions of people of color, and it is the same narrative that supported and led to the executions in Charleston. . . . The question I ask is not how could this young man be affected by these historic failures, by this ideology, the question is how could he not? We're all affected by it.

 . . . You'll see lots of people talking enthusiastically about imposing the death penalty on this young man in South Carolina. But that’s a distraction from the larger issue, which is that we’ve used the death penalty to sustain racial hierarchy by making it primarily a tool to reinforce the victimization of white people. The greatest racial disparity of the death penalty is the way in which the death penalty is largely reserved for cases where the victims are white. . . . I don’t think anybody should get the death penalty. I'm against the death penalty. Not because I believe people don’t deserve to die for the crimes that they commit. I think that we don’t deserve to kill. The system of justice in South Carolina is not going to be better or more racially just based on whether this kid gets executed or not. If I were the governor of South Carolina, I’d say: ‘We’re going to abolish the death penalty, because we have a history of lynching and terror that has demonized and burdened people of color in this state since we’ve became a state. I'm not gonna end the death penalty because there are innocent people on death row, I'm not gonna end the death penalty because I think it's unreliable or it's too expensive, I'm gonna end it because in South Carolina, we have a history of bias and terror and violence and segregation, and the death penalty has been a tool for sustaining that, and I’m gonna say we're not gonna have that.’"