Juneteenth Essay Contest Submission
Prompt: Write about a current day hero who is presently breaking chains for people of color. How are they breaking chains and why are their actions making a difference?
While many people have found themselves comfortable and complacent with the halt in progress towards racial equity in America, there are still glaring issues throughout the foundations on which our communities have been built. In Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, she explores how the system of mass incarceration that America has created functions as a way to keep black and brown people oppressed, taking away their right to vote, chances at a college education, and too often their lives. Throughout the early nineties, the use of the term “super-predators” and the initiation of the War on Drugs created and reaffirmed a negative paradigm that has been placed around black males for centuries. This has led to disparities materializing throughout our prison system, as the U.S. Census Bureau gauges that while black Americans make up roughly 13.7% of the United States population, they make up more than 37% of the prison population. This disparity is further explained through the analysis performed by Michigan State University in 2019, explaining that black Americans are 50% more likely to be innocent when convicted of murder and on average take more time to be exonerated afterward. However, while it is obvious that black Americans are trapped in a system that is constantly adapting and evolving to maintain their oppression, there is one person who has dedicated their life to breaking the chains of the new Jim Crow.
Bryan Stevenson, born in Milton, Delaware in 1959, grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, and cultivated passion for learning, went on to attend Harvard Law School. However, as detailed in his memoir Just Mercy, Stevenson is best known for his work defending innocent people of color placed on death row, and the founding of The Equal Justice Initiative, which is working to end mass incarceration and create equity for people of color.
While he has worked on hundreds of cases, Stevenson is most known for the case of Walter McMillian, who was charged for murder and sentenced to death row, where he lived for over six years. In 1988, Bryan Stevenson began working on McMillian’s appeals, which led to his release in 1993. Bryan Stevenson, who at the time was broke, working without assistance and struggling with his own identity as a black male, still worked tirelessly for years.
The narrative of Stenveson’s dedication and unmatched work is furthered in the novel, The Sun Does Shine, by Anthony Ray Hinton. Hinton writes the story of how he himself had been charged for a double-homicide, even though there was no physical evidence proving that he had had any involvement, leaving him on death row for 28 years. Hinton details that while his previous attorneys did not believe his innocence, Stevenson sought him out and worked without stop on his case until the DA eventually dropped all charges, changing the fate of Hinton’s life. When looking at the prison system as a whole, it is hard to see anything other than a sustained record of failure. In reality, the prison was never truly meant as a response to crime, but a mechanism for the containment and control of a people. While Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton are just two examples, they are more than enough to understand that the American prison system has been created to confine and control people of color, and it is crucial that we fight back.
Breaking these chains and changing the paradigm around people of color is more crucial now than ever, as people have found comfort in complacency in our reality, in turn costing the lives of black and brown people all over the country. In his novel Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson is quoted “You don't change the world with the ideas in your mind, but with the conviction in your heart” and he has held true to that statement throughout his life, and has dedicated every part himself to working to not only break the chains that have been placed on the bodies of innocent black and brown people all over the country but also break-down the systems that have been established that have long allowed this to happen.
Sources
Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow. New York, NY: New Press.
Bureau, C. (2018). U.S. Census Bureau Quickfacts: United States. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218
Grant, M. (1995, November 27). Bryan Stevenson. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://people.com/archive/bryan-stevenson-vol-44-no-22/
Incarceration, T. (2020). Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
Research, M. (2019). African-Americans More Likely to be Wrongfully Convicted. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://research.msu.edu/innocent-african-americans-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted/
Stevenson, B. (2015). Just mercy. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau.
While many people have found themselves comfortable and complacent with the halt in progress towards racial equity in America, there are still glaring issues throughout the foundations on which our communities have been built. In Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, she explores how the system of mass incarceration that America has created functions as a way to keep black and brown people oppressed, taking away their right to vote, chances at a college education, and too often their lives. Throughout the early nineties, the use of the term “super-predators” and the initiation of the War on Drugs created and reaffirmed a negative paradigm that has been placed around black males for centuries. This has led to disparities materializing throughout our prison system, as the U.S. Census Bureau gauges that while black Americans make up roughly 13.7% of the United States population, they make up more than 37% of the prison population. This disparity is further explained through the analysis performed by Michigan State University in 2019, explaining that black Americans are 50% more likely to be innocent when convicted of murder and on average take more time to be exonerated afterward. However, while it is obvious that black Americans are trapped in a system that is constantly adapting and evolving to maintain their oppression, there is one person who has dedicated their life to breaking the chains of the new Jim Crow.
Bryan Stevenson, born in Milton, Delaware in 1959, grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, and cultivated passion for learning, went on to attend Harvard Law School. However, as detailed in his memoir Just Mercy, Stevenson is best known for his work defending innocent people of color placed on death row, and the founding of The Equal Justice Initiative, which is working to end mass incarceration and create equity for people of color.
While he has worked on hundreds of cases, Stevenson is most known for the case of Walter McMillian, who was charged for murder and sentenced to death row, where he lived for over six years. In 1988, Bryan Stevenson began working on McMillian’s appeals, which led to his release in 1993. Bryan Stevenson, who at the time was broke, working without assistance and struggling with his own identity as a black male, still worked tirelessly for years.
The narrative of Stenveson’s dedication and unmatched work is furthered in the novel, The Sun Does Shine, by Anthony Ray Hinton. Hinton writes the story of how he himself had been charged for a double-homicide, even though there was no physical evidence proving that he had had any involvement, leaving him on death row for 28 years. Hinton details that while his previous attorneys did not believe his innocence, Stevenson sought him out and worked without stop on his case until the DA eventually dropped all charges, changing the fate of Hinton’s life. When looking at the prison system as a whole, it is hard to see anything other than a sustained record of failure. In reality, the prison was never truly meant as a response to crime, but a mechanism for the containment and control of a people. While Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton are just two examples, they are more than enough to understand that the American prison system has been created to confine and control people of color, and it is crucial that we fight back.
Breaking these chains and changing the paradigm around people of color is more crucial now than ever, as people have found comfort in complacency in our reality, in turn costing the lives of black and brown people all over the country. In his novel Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson is quoted “You don't change the world with the ideas in your mind, but with the conviction in your heart” and he has held true to that statement throughout his life, and has dedicated every part himself to working to not only break the chains that have been placed on the bodies of innocent black and brown people all over the country but also break-down the systems that have been established that have long allowed this to happen.
Sources
Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow. New York, NY: New Press.
Bureau, C. (2018). U.S. Census Bureau Quickfacts: United States. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218
Grant, M. (1995, November 27). Bryan Stevenson. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://people.com/archive/bryan-stevenson-vol-44-no-22/
Incarceration, T. (2020). Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/
Research, M. (2019). African-Americans More Likely to be Wrongfully Convicted. Retrieved May 02, 2020, from https://research.msu.edu/innocent-african-americans-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted/
Stevenson, B. (2015). Just mercy. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau.
Thank you for sharing this here.
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