{"id":856,"date":"2020-06-03T08:02:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T22:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&#038;p=173690"},"modified":"2020-11-01T23:37:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T23:37:41","slug":"just-mercy-black-lives-matter-bryan-stevenson","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/just-mercy-black-lives-matter-bryan-stevenson\/","title":{"rendered":"What We&#8217;re Watching: Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx\u2019s film \u2018Just Mercy\u2019 Is A Good Place To Start Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_173691\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-173691\" style=\"width: 4686px\" class=\"wp-caption alignfull -width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-173691 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rev-1-JM-04696r_High_Res_JPEG-Cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Michael B. Jordan Jamie Foxx Just Mercy\" width=\"4686\" height=\"2635\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-173691\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx play lawyer Bryan Stevenson and death row inmate Walter McMillian in new film \u201cJust Mercy.\u201d Credit: Warner Bros.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>GRAZIA believes in the power of storytelling. We are committed to listening and learning and sharing the voices of systematic oppression from around the world and stand in solidarity against any form of racism and discrimination.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK CITY: \u201cWe still have a system that treats you better if you\u2019re rich and guilty than if you\u2019re poor and innocent,\u201d American lawyer Bryan Stevenson tells me inside the JW Marriott Essex House on 57<sup>th<\/sup> in December of 2019. \u201cAnd as long as that\u2019s true, there\u2019s an effort that has to be made. There\u2019s a call that has to be answered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re not familiar with Stevenson, now is the time to learn about his work. A lawyer and author of the thought-provoking memoir <em>Just Mercy,<\/em> Stevenson has battled against the echoes of the Jim Crow segregation era and its effects on the American criminal justice system his entire career as a defender of the wrongfully condemned. His story is so powerful that Warner Bros. turned one of his cases into a moving must-see film, also titled <em>Just Mercy<\/em> and released in Australia earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>During the month of June, the film studio is making the film free to rent on all digital platforms. \u201cWe believe in the power of story. Our film\u00a0<em>Just Mercy,\u00a0<\/em>based on the lifework of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, is one resource we can humbly offer to those who are interested in learning more about the systemic racism that plagues our society,\u201d read a statement posted by Warner Bros. last night on its social media channels.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"JUST MERCY \u2013 Main Trailer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dVJxMUqCUxs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (<em>Short Term 12<\/em>) and from a script written with Andrew Lanham, the legal drama follows a young Stevenson (played by Michael B. Jordan) as he arrives in Alabama in the late 1980s to lend his dissenting voice to the dispossessed inmates of death row. Here he meets a vanquished Walter McMillian, an Alabama pulpwood worker (played by Jamie Foxx) who was wrongfully convicted of murdering an 18-year-old girl and sentenced to death. McMillian initially didn\u2019t want anything to do with the seemingly na\u00efve lawyer, a moment that took place inside Holman State Prison in Atmore \u2013 and one Stevenson remembers well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to stay hopeful in such a desperate situation. It just becomes easier to just kind of exist in that dark space,\u201d Stevenson says. \u201cI think Walter, having lived a life in the segregated South \u2013 having been marginalized his entire life \u2013 it was initially hard to recover that [hope]. I remember the moment [McMillian started to shift his perspective of Stevenson] and it was after I met his family. When you take an innocent person and you put them on death row, you\u2019re not just convicting and condemning that person, you convict and condemn the entire family. They were so excited at the possibility that someone might fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_173692\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-173692\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignfull -width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-173692 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Walter-and-Bryan-1024x536-1.jpg\" alt=\"Walter McMillian and Bryan Stevenson\" width=\"1024\" height=\"536\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-173692\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The real Walter McMillian and Bryan Stevenson. Credit: eji.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Australian audiences will have a hard time swallowing how guilt or innocence plays second fiddle to capital punishment in some American states. Despite so much evidence proving McMillian\u2019s innocence \u2013 and the fact the main testimony against him came from a dubious witness named Ralph Myers (played convincingly by Tim Blake Nelson) \u2013 the system is so stacked against black men of a particular socioeconomic background, McMillian didn\u2019t stand a chance. With the help of local advocate Eva Ansley (played by Brie Larson), Stevenson fights a convoluted legal labyrinth to eventually see McMillian released.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very affirming. It\u2019s very gratifying,\u201d says Stevenson recounting the feeling of quite literally saving a man\u2019s life. \u201cIt\u2019s just challenging at the same time because I don\u2019t have the ability to give back to people what they\u2019ve lost. I can\u2019t give Walter McMillian six years back. I can\u2019t give [fellow death row inmate] Anthony Ray Hinton who gets released after 30 years that time back. But what I can do is give them my ultimate effort and my best to make sure they are not wrongfully executed. What frustrates me is there\u2019s still so many innocent people in our jails and prisons who need help and who need legal advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Familiarize yourself with the case via this 1992 interview with Stevenson and McMillian on US program <em>60 Minutes<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Walter McMillian on 60 Minutes\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/shzMjyuijRU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the American criminal justice system \u2013 and as George Floyd&#8217;s senseless death proves \u2013 wealth and race, not culpability, distinguish the guilty from the innocent. African Americans make up 42% of the people on death row and 34% of those executed \u2013 but only 13% of the population is black. Each exonerated person spent on average more than eight years and 10 months in prison for crimes they did not commit.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Brie Larson, Michael B. Jordan pay tribute to Bryan Stevenson\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/386633067?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>When I talk about films and books that opened my eyes to the daily pain experienced by a person with black skin, I always cite this one. Seeing this film and meeting Stevenson in person moved me and motivated me to find out more about other cases like McMillian&#8217;s and the work of Stevenson\u2019s team at the <a href=\"https:\/\/eji.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Equal Justice Initiative<\/a> in Alabama.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve written a separate story over at <a href=\"https:\/\/icon.ink\/articles\/death-row-alabama\/\" target=\"_blank\">icon.ink<\/a> where I speak to one of Stevenson\u2019s colleagues, EJI\u2019s senior attorney Charlotte Morrison, who also served as part of the legal team on the Anthony Ray Hinton case. From the evolution of slavery, lynching, codified segregation and now mass incarceration to the faulty forensics that send black men to prison and the white officers who are never held accountable, we discuss it all. <a href=\"https:\/\/icon.ink\/articles\/death-row-alabama\/\" target=\"_blank\">You can read it here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"price-style\"><a href=\"https:\/\/icon.ink\/articles\/death-row-alabama\/\" target=\"_blank\">READ: The Next To Die: The Tales Of Racial Injustices and The Presumption Of Guilt on Alabama\u2019s Death Row<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll never, ever be able to actually, fully, really, truly understand. But films are a good place to start \u2013 yes, START \u2013 our education on racism.<\/p>\n<h5><em>GRAZIA believes in the power of storytelling. We are committed to listening and learning and sharing the voices of systematic oppression from around the world and stand in solidarity against any form of racism and discrimination.<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":860,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.5 (Yoast SEO v20.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why You Need To Watch Or Re-watch Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx\u2019s film, Just Mercy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you\u2019re not familiar with Stevenson, now is the time to learn about his work. 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