Everything Happens with Kate Bowler Listen Again: Loving Mercy with Bryan Stevenson
Jan 20, 2026
Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of *Just Mercy*, passionately discusses his lifelong commitment to justice and human rights. He shares how his early experiences with death row shaped his calling and the importance of being a 'stonecatcher'—a metaphor for absorbing condemnation to foster dialogue. They explore forgiveness towards the undeserving, the systemic inequalities in the justice system, and the power of truth-telling for healing. Stevenson’s hopeful perspective inspires resilience in the fight against racial injustice.
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Sung Into A Life's Work
- Bryan Stevenson was moved into lawyering by a death-row inmate who sang a hymn and thanked him for promising no execution date that year.
- That encounter made him commit to learning every legal doctrine to help condemned people reach "higher ground."
A Shack, A Memory, And A Mission
- Stevenson describes visiting his grandmother's shack in Virginia where she asked him to listen and later revealed it was the place her father was born into slavery.
- That memory informed his work researching slavery, lynching, and building cultural sites in Montgomery, Alabama.
History Explains Geographic Injustice
- The Deep South concentrated slavery, later terror and segregation, shaping systemic injustice in places like Alabama and Montgomery.
- Understanding local history reveals why some regions became epicenters of racialized violence and mass incarceration.
