when I was a little boy my grandmother would see me and she'd come over to me and she'd give me these hugs and she'd squeeze me so tightly I thought she was trying to hurt me then she'd let me go and an hour later she'd see me and she'd say Brian do you still feel me hugging you I didn't appreciate that until I was much older I went to see her uh when she was dying and I was pouring my heart out because she really didn't mean the world to me and I was holding her
hand saying all these things it was time for me to go and I stood up to leave and before I left my grandmother opened her eyes and she squeezed my hand and the last thing she said to me she said Brian do you still feel me hugging you and then she said I'm always going to be hugging you I grew up in a poor rural racially segregated Community um my uh grandfather lived in Philadelphia and the projects in a very low income and uh struggling area and when he was uh 86 years old uh some
young men broke into his apartment and tried to steal his television while he was there and he tried to prevent them from stealing it and he ended up being stabbed to death murdered he and my grandmother had nine living children there were dozens of grandchildren and this idea that someone that frail that vulnerable that harmless could be killed so violently was a very difficult thing I remember though my grandmother and and people in my family not asking you know what kind of harsh punishment they wanted they were asking questions like how does this happen what
has happened to us that young kids would stab to death uh an 86- year old man over a TV and that contextualize a lot for me the need to create a healthier Community the need to want more than what I saw in my community and what my grandfather saw in his always had this idea that uh we're all more than the worst thing we've ever done uh that if someone tells a lie they're not just a liar if someone takes something they're not just a thief even if you kill someone I don't believe you're just
a killer and Justice requires that we understand the other things you are because I've been judged unfairly I've been presumed uh to be dangerous or guilty I've had the police pulled me out of my car and queen a gun at my head and threatened to blow my brains out and that Consciousness will make you I think yearn for something that's closer to Redemption closer to Rehabilitation closer to reconciliation closer to repair than what often is talked about in our policy and political discourse I took a course that required me to spend a month with an
organization providing legal services to people on death row and that's what got me to death row and I was completely unprepared but they asked me to explain to somebody that he's not at risk of execution anytime in the next year that was my task and I went to George's death row and I was so nervous and distraught that when this man walked in I was a bit overwhelmed and what I remembered about him is just how burdened with chains he was he had handcuffs on his wrist had a chain around his waist it Shackles on
his ankles it took them 10 minutes to unchain him and when they did he walked over and I began to apologize he said I'm sorry I'm just a law student I don't know much about the death penalty I don't know much about Criminal Appeals or procedure I then said they sent me down here to tell you that you're not at risk of execution uh anytime in the next year and I was surprised that when I said that the man said wait wait wait say that again I said you're not at risk of execution anytime in
the next year and the man said wait wait say that again and I said you're not at risk of execution any time in the next year and that's when this man grabbed my hands he said thank you thank you thank you he said you're the first person I've met in the two years I've been on death row who's not a death row prisoner or death row guard he said I've been talking to my wife and kids on the phone but I haven't let them come and visit because I was afraid they'd show up and I
would have an execution date he said now because of you I'm gonna see my wife and I'm going to see my kids and I couldn't believe how even in my ignorance being proximate to someone showing up for someone I couldn't believe the difference that could make in someone's life we ended up talking for three hours because he just kept asking me questions and I kept asking him questions and this amazing thing happened the guards got angry they they came running into the room and they were treating him really roughly I remember before he walked out
of the room how that man planted his feet and then he turned to me and he looked at me he said Brian don't worry about this you just come back uh and then that man did something I've never forgotten he threw his head back he closed his eyes and he began to sing he Sayang I'm pressing on the upward Way New Heights I'm gaining every day still praying as I'm onward bound and then he said Lord plant my feet on higher ground and that radicalized things for me that's when I realized I wanted to help
condemned people get to higher ground but I also realized that my journey to Higher Ground was tied to his we are so intent on shielding ourselves from um exposing any of our vulnerabilities it sometimes makes us cruel it makes us abusive and when I represent people on death row I see the manifestation of that uh I represented a man who was intellectually disabled and we tried to get the courts to stop his execution because the courts have actually banned execution of the intellectually disabled but because we have a criminal justice system that treats you better
if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent where wealth not culpability shapes outcomes this man couldn't get the legal assistance he needed and when it came time for the day of his execution and I found myself on the phone having to say to him I'm so sorry but I can't stop this execution it was devastating to me and the next thing I knew this man was just so ing on the other end of the phone I didn't know what to say and then he tried to say something to me he said Mr
Stevenson please don't hang up he I've got something really important I want to say to you and the last thing that man said was Mr Stevenson I love you you're trying to save my life he hung up the phone they pulled him away they strapped him to a gurnie and they executed him I hung up the phone I said I don't think I can do this anymore I kept thinking about how broken he was and the question I had is why do we want to kill all the broken people and then I realized I that
I represent broken people my clients are broken by poverty and disability and racism and dependency and addiction and hopelessness and then I realize that I sometimes work in a broken system because the people with power are unwilling to get proximate and then all of a sudden in the midst of that Agony came this Insight what I realized that night which I'd never realized before is that I do what I do because I'm broken too and the truth is is that when you try to lift up human rights when you try to help people who are
suffering who have been oppressed who've been beat down who are struggling with addiction and dependency there are moments where you are overwhelmed where you feel injured by the proximity to pain and anguish it will break you but that's also the night that I realize that there's a power among the broken it's the broken that can teach us the way compassion works it's the broken that understand the power of Mercy the importance of Justice the beauty of redemption is sometimes in broken that we understand how not only the human Spirit but the human body uh needs
to be held embraced like my grandmother would embrace me and that has motivated me to keep fighting and to keep doing the work that I do
