Bryan Stevenson, a public interest lawyer, shares practical advice on perseverance, mindfulness, and cultivating hope and faith. Topics include non-negotiable practices, maintaining purpose, proximity to communities facing injustice, handling fear and anger, and creating safe spaces for open conversation. Also discussed are the transformative effects of getting close to people, the power of belief in staying committed, and the importance of faith and prayer in maintaining hope.

Original Air Date: February 17th, 2021Everything we do, every relationship we have, succeeds or fails based on our level of true spiritual connection with others. How do we get back on track when we find ourselves disconnected from people? In this episode of “Super Soul,” Oprah sits down with acclaimed spiritual teachers—including Jill Bolte Taylor, Dr. Maya Angelou, Sister Joan Chittister, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gary Zukav and Linda Francis, Meagan Good, Rob and Kristen Bell, President Jimmy Carter, Pastor Wintley Phipps, Brené Brown, Tracy Morgan, Phil Jackson, Shawn Achor, Gloria Steinem, Bryan Stevenson, Malala Yousafzai, and Elie Wiesel—to discover the steps we all can take to find creative ways to nurture the bonds of love and a connection with the people in our lives, and then gradually expanding that to the rest of the world. Interviews with these talented writers, speakers and thought leaders are excerpted from Oprah’s Emmy Award-winning show “Super Soul Sunday.” You can also find this compilation and other insightful conversations in Oprah’s best-selling book The Wisdom of Sundays. Want more podcasts from OWN? Visit https://bit.ly/OWNPods You can also watch Oprah’s Super Soul, The Oprah Winfrey Show and more of your favorite OWN shows on your TV! Visit https://bit.ly/find_OWN 

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release for more than 115 wrongly convicted prisoners on death row. He’s the author of the power book Just Mercy, and a winner of a MacArthur “Genius” grant. There are only a few people I’d say this about, but he’s a genuine American hero.This conversation begins with one of Stevenson’s most provocative arguments. “The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth,” he says. “It’s justice.” In this podcast, he explains what he means.We also talk at length about his argument — an argument I am now fully convinced by — that the question is not whether a criminal deserves to die but whether the state deserves to kill. We talk about America’s history, our justice system, our prejudices. We talk about what it’s like to be a black man in the South, driving down highways named for Robert E. Lee and attending high schools named for Jefferson Davis. We talk about the value of shame, and the way we honor it in the justice system even as we dismiss it in our national dialogue.The nature of writing these podcast descriptions is that they lend themselves to hype. I want you to listen, and I use this space to try to persuade you to listen. But that backfires a bit when it gets to a conversation like this one, which left me more changed than perhaps any of the discussions that came before it. This is worth listening to.Books:“The Brothers Karamazov," by Fyodor Dostoyevsky"Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson“Anna Karenina," by Leo Tolstoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How to embrace what’s right and corrective, redemptive and restorative — and an insistence that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done — these are gifts Bryan Stevenson offers with his life. He’s brought the language of mercy and redemption into American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Now the groundbreaking museum they created in Montgomery has dramatically expanded — a new way of engaging the full and ongoing legacy of slavery in U.S. history. Krista draws out his spirit — and his moral imagination.Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.This show originally aired in December, 2020.

How to embrace what’s right and corrective, redemptive and restorative — and an insistence that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve done — these are gifts Bryan Stevenson offers with his life. He’s brought the language of mercy and redemption into American culture in recent years, growing out of his work as a lawyer with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama. Now the groundbreaking museum they created in Montgomery has dramatically expanded — a new way of engaging the full and ongoing legacy of slavery in U.S. history. Krista draws out his spirit — and his moral imagination.Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Bryan Stevenson — Finding the Courage for What's Redemptive." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.