Book: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy had been on my list of books to read for a long time and I finally read it recently.  Whenever I went to the library, all the copies were checked out, so I finally just bought it.  It reminded me some of The New Jim Crow, which I read last year around this time, but this book had much more of a narrative feel to it.  It was hard to put it down because I kept wondering what was going to happen next in these stories.  Usually it was shocking and crazy to realize that these stories actually happened.  How is it that a 14 year old could be in adult prison for life because of situation he was coerced into and ended up making bad choices, couldn't get out of it, and actually didn't hurt anyone?  How could a mother be in prison for years because she happened to have a stillborn birth alone, be poor, and a suspicious neighbor ended up calling the police wondering if she'd killed her baby?  How could a black man be on death row for years for the murder of a white woman, a crime he never committed?  How could it happen in a town proud of its associate with Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird?

Bryan Stevenson writes about all these stories with compassion and truth, as a lawyer with years of experience seeking out people with unjust prison sentences and fighting for just mercy.  I loved reading him describe how he listened to people's stories, and in some cases waited for them to trust him to tell him what was really going on, but he didn't give up.  I am realizing more and more how important it is for us to listen to the stories of others, ask to hear the stories of others, put ourselves in places and mindsets where we can hear and listen to someone else's story, maybe especially stories we are unfamiliar with or have never heard before.  It can be hard to know what to do with the many stories of injustice in the world (and Bryan Stevenson writes with emotion and hope about this too).  But we can start by listening.  This book is one way to do that.