Civil Rights Lawyer Bryan Stevenson Wins “Various Nobel” for Work In opposition to Mass Incarceration

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Amy GOOD MAN:: We’re ending tonight’s show in nearby Alabama with civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative. He was one of four human rights defenders who won this year’s Right Livelihood Award last Thursday. This was his acceptance speech.

BRYAN STEVENSON:: I work in a country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. I am working against a system that treats you better when you are rich and guilty than when you are poor and innocent. We are working to overcome this horrific era of mass imprisonment in America sparked by the politics of fear and anger. And in too many places in the world we are ruled by people who preach fear and anger. And fear and anger are the essential components of oppression and abuse.

And we need a community of people who fight against it. That’s what my human rights work is all about. It’s about challenging these conditions that were so brutal, so toxic, and so critically unfair. There are thousands of innocent people in our prisons and prisons and we will keep fighting for them.

I am the descendant of one of the 12 million Africans who were kidnapped, abducted and brought to this continent 400 years ago. My great grandparents were enslaved. They faced the bondage and horrors of slavery in this nation. And yet they persevered. They had a hope. They had a belief. They had a commitment to freedom and equality.

I stand in front of glasses. And behind me, those glasses represent the thousands of blacks who have been lynched in America. These have been collected in locations across America for a century. African Americans have been brutalized, pulled from their homes, beaten, bloody, drowned, set on fire, lynched in a nation where lawlessness reigned.

I am the child of people born in Jim Crow. My parents were humiliated and vilified by the signs “white” and “colored”. And they weren’t instructions; They were attacks. They caused injuries. And our nation has not faced these injuries. I started my education in a colored school. But I wouldn’t be here today if lawyers hadn’t come to our community and allowed me to go to high school, college, and law school.

And Mr. Hinton and I still live in a nation where there is a presumption of danger and guilt that weighs on the black and brown people. We’ve been on the streets this summer trying to counter this legacy of racial inequality that continues to contaminate our nation. We are not free yet. We have not dealt with this terrible narrative. My great grandparents were enslaved. They had to deal with brutality and bondage. But the biggest victimization they have suffered has been this narrative that originated during slavery that blacks are not as good as whites, that blacks are less people, blacks are less developed, blacks deserve less, blacks are less able. This narrative is the narrative we fight against.

I’m in Montgomery, Alabama. It is a community where a generation ago people are doing their best to protest and fight for equality and justice. They knew they would be bloody and beaten and beaten, but they left anyway. I stand on the shoulders of people who have done so much more with so much less. And because of them, I am determined that we must keep fighting. Because of them, I think we have to get up even when people say, “Sit down.” We need to speak even when people say, “Be quiet.”

Wherever human rights are violated, where injustice can be found, where inequality can be seen, there has to be a community of people who fight. And I am honored to be part of this community and to receive this recognition today for this struggle.

Thank you for doing what you did for me. But more than that, for all the people around the world who suffer from inequality and injustice, I thank you for realizing the importance of our struggle.

Amy GOOD MAN:: Bryan Stevenson is the winner of this year’s Right Livelihood Award, which was presented last Thursday. To see the full ceremony, visit democracynow.org – often referred to as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. This Thursday, December 10th, International Human Rights Day, the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to the World Food Program. And of course we will report on it.

Congratulations to Igor Moreno! That makes it for today’s show. Democracy now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Libby Rainey, Nermeen Shaikh, Maria Taracena, Carla Wills, Tami Woronoff, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Adriano Contreras. Special thanks to Julie Crosby, Becca Staley. I am amy goodman.