Come to terms with. Rose Bryan Stevenson and Michael Krk Williams next. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Bryan stevenson is here, he is a Public Interest lawyer who has dedicated his life to fighting Racial Discrimination in the criminal justice system. His efforts have also focused on putting a spotlight on the legacy of slavery in america. His nonprofit equal Justice Initiative has saved 125 death row prisoners from execution. Hes also won a Landmark Supreme Court ruling that held mandatory life without parole sentences for minors is unconstitutional. The organization plans to open the first and largest memorial honoring the thousands of victims of lynching in the United States that will happen next year. The project includes a museum that will explore the road from slavery to the current era of mass incarceration. Both will be located in Montgomery Alabama am i am pleased to have Bryan Stevenson back at this table, well koment. When you went to montgomery as a young lawyer, i mean did you see unfurling this career that you have had. Did you burn with the fire to do what you have done . I didnt see everything that would come. You know, i grew up in a poor Rural Community where i saw the anguish of racial exclusion. We lived in a black settlement and we couldnt go to the Public Schools am and i know the way people internalized that hurt. I saw people humiliated by segregation and jim crow. And so when i got to montgomery, that desire to see things change was very real. But i had no idea that you kow things would develop as they did. I went there at a time when you know, could you still have a conversation with rosa parks. Who had moved to detroit but would come back. And there were these icons to the Civil Rights Movement in my ear. But ive been hopeful that we could get to the point where we could talk about these issues on a broader context. We have had some success in the criminal justice area. Still have a lot of work to do, an enormous amount of work to do and weve had some setbacks. But i now realize that we have got to talk about these issues more broadly if we really want to see the change. Rose did you want to have a big life sth. No. I just wanted to make a difference. I would be very happy. Rose thats one definition of a big life. Well, it is. But you know, i have been happiest when i go to the prison and spend time with clients. You know, standing up for people in the court room, making the kind of arguments that i think need to be made to kind of point to humanity of every human being. But i didnt expect to be in a situation where we had to talk more nationally and internationally about these issues. Rose are we approaching the time in which there is developing a consensus on criminal justice. I think we have approached a time where there is a consensus that we have too many people in jails and prisons. People on the right, people on the left, all recognized its going too far. Rose its coming from both siesd of any political divide. Thats exactly right. I think anybody realizes that putting people in prison for luv for simple possession of marijuana or writing a bad check is an inefficient use of government resources, its excessive, its peun tiff, its harsh, its unnecessary. Were not actually advancing Public Safety when we have hundreds of thousands of people in jails or prisons who are not a threat to Public Safety. And we went from 6 billion in jails and prisons in 1980 to 80 billion last year. Not only are we not helping in the Public Safety space, were undermining funding for education. And for health and Human Services and for a lot of those things that the rest of society needs. Rose in so many areas of endeavor, we are a shining light. Uhhuh. Rose but not in criminal justice. Not in criminal jus tises and i think thats in part because we have allowed ourselves to be a little distracted by the politics of fear and anger. We have allowed ourselves to beu into narratives rooted in fear and rooted in anger. And when are you afraid and when youre angry, you will toolly tolerate abuse and unfairness and inequality. And in the 1970st political candidates started saying lets be tough on crime. And nobody said no, we shouldnt be tough on crime. They all competed with one another over who could be the toughest on crime and it created the political culture where both democrats and republicans who were looking for ways to show their toughness. It was also law and order and tough on crime. And that we exhausted our ability to kind of just focus on people committing Violent Crimes that threaten Public Safety. We went into other spaces, we said drug addiction and drug dependency, thats not a health problem, its a crime problem. We didnt do that for alcoholism, we said alcoholism is a disease. It wouldnt cross our mind if he with saw someone we knew who was an alcoholic going into the bar, to call the police. That would make no sense. But in the drug context, we said no, those people are criminals. We have now sent hundreds o thousands of people to jails and prisons. But that phenomenon, i think, is related to this history of racial inequality. Rose right. I think if we had done better in recognizing the problems of the genocide when native people were slaughtered by the millions, if we had actually developed a consciousness that says wait a minute, we made a mistake, through disease and famine and war have created this horrific consequence for native people in this country, we would have thought differently. But we didnt. We just went past that genocide. And then we enslaved people for centuries. And while we ultimately recognized that slavery was wrong, we didnt really account for all the damage that was done. We never talked about the ideology of white sprem see that emerged during that time period. We didnt actually try to repair all the damage that was done by enslaving human beings. We fought the civil war. And making them property. And making them property. And not human. We fought the civil war and shortly after that we abandoned any effort at recovery. Through the could lance of reconstruction. And that lead then to this era of terrorism and lynching and the trauma that created was created. So we have not been very good at owning up to these mistakes. As a result of that, they keep manifesting themselves. Are you suggesting that show what happened in south africa, with the truth in secretary little yaition never happened in slavery and therefore we never have come to grips with it . I dont think there is any question about that. I done think anybody can argue that we committed ourselves to truthtell being the legacy of slavery. It just didnt happen. We did the opposite. We didnt hold the people who were accountable for slavery responsible. We didnt actually insist on recovery and repair for emancipated people. We abandoned those who were enslaved. We allowed them to sink back into this condition of second slavery. We tolerated conduct. Let me ask in a locker room way so what about Thomas Jefferson. Is Thomas Jefferson who owns slaves therefore should be taken out of American History . Or he should be what . No, i dont think we should ignore our history. Rose did he tell you this was a what . I think we. I think there are obviously things that people during that era did that were wonderful an respect recall that could be honored as great and remarkable but we should also say it is a cloud over the founding of this country that we couldnt see, the inhumanity, the inequality inherent in slavery. Doesnt mean we are condemned. Doesnt mean we dont have something to be proud of. It does moan we have to ultimately own up to that. At some point we have to say slavery was horrific. And we need to see how we free ourselves. You have to ignore it, pretend it doesnt exist, you actually add to the victimization. Rose i want to understand you clearly. What is the definition of pretending it doesnt exist. Pretending it didnt exist is evident when Michelle Obama gets up at the Democratic Convention and talking about slave, enslaved people building the white house and everybody says thats wrong, thats outrage us, thats crazy. It is pretending it didnt exist is when we said oh, slives had it good. They were well fed. Pretending it doesnt exist is what you see when you come to the American South. I dont know that as many people appreciate the hardships of slavery as there should be. I dont think weve done a very good job of actually detailing the hardships and struggles. Rose so what is necessary to do that. We have to begin telling the story. Its only a couple of years ago that a film called 12 years a slave was produced. Which is probably the first time we saw on the big screen an honest accounting of slavery. We had hundreds of other films that told a different story about slavery. And again, i cant ignore the fact that the south is littered with the iconography of the confederacy. We actually have romant sized this period of slavery. We said it was a great time. We have honored the architects and defenders of slavery. And that suggests that we dont really appreciate what we were doing. It would be unconscionable for someone to say lets make adolf hitlers birthday a National Holiday it would be unconscionable to say lets make osama bin ladens birthday a National Holiday. But yet in many states we are celebrating these architects and defenders of slavery as if there is nothing comparable. Rose okay, but tell me about the museum. Sure. Rose and what you believe it can begin to do. Yeah. The museum will be an 11,000 square foot area. Its situated a hundred meters from one of the most prominent slave auction sites in American South. Its situated a hundred meters from the Alabama River where a doc and rail station transported thousands, tens of thousands of enslaved people. It will introduce people to the hardships of slavery. There will be slave warehouses, you will hear the voices of enslaved people through holographic images. Were going to get slave narratives and use that language. Well talk about African People being kidnapped and the horrors of bondage. Well have artifacts that present some of that well have Virtual Reality films where you will experience what it is like. Put you right there on the train when enslaved people were being forced from the upper south to the lower south with all of that anxiety about whether they would be able to keep their children or their children would be taken away from them. And well move from that slavery experience into the era of terrorism. And well try to get people to understand. Rose and terrorism is the lynching. Is the lynching. And what we want people to understand is that lynching wasnt mob justice. It wasnt mob violence. It, these lynchings took place in communities where there was a functioning criminal justice system, but black people werent teamed deemed good enough to be a defendant. And people werent lynched for accusations of crimes. Elizabeth warren was lynched because she was an older black woman who was targeted by children who were throwing stones at her and she chieded those children. And because she chieded those children, their parent nses the comooment got angry and came to her home and they lynched her. A family was lynched because the pastor said that the ligerring that took place the day before was wrong. People in mississippi were lynched because they bumped into white people running to the train station and these social transgretions is what created this lynching. And that mernlt that for black families, when your son came home and said i might have laughed inappropriately at someones joke, i might have bumped into someone, you had to have a crisis conference where you decided whether to sends your loved one to the north or not. It was traumatizing, and we sent people out of the American South with the trauma, with fear. And now they sit in urban communities where trauma has been unaddressed. So for me you have to understand it. We will have in the museum a consult that has the most comprehensive data on lynching in the country. Where people can see about their communities and their histories. And then were going to talk about the era of segregation in a slightly different way. Were not interested, as interested in the celebratory stories about what heroic people of color did, dr. King and rosa parks. What we are interested in is the intensity of resistance to integration. We want people to see the fines that were put throughout the south that restricted where black people could go. We want them to see the statutes that legislative bodies created. Because we tend to demonize the arc teblghts of racism. We all want all racist to be he m ebbs of the clan, it would be convenient if that is where they all lived but that is not, we had members of the legislature creating documents and doctrines to burden people of color. Until you understand the intensity of resistance to integration, you cannot understand why we are still dealing with racial bias of in country. If you understand this history, you would be foolish to think that the civil rights ak or the Voting Rights act was sufficient to end this history of racial inequality. You would recognize that people are still going to be trying to undermine. You said im persuaded that we really wont eliminate the problems and discrimination in the criminal justice system, in the Education System and in the employment system until we change the narrative of racial difference that we have all accepted. Yeah. I think thats right. I think that we are all actually infected by this narrative. I think its wrong what we are doing to our children. Rose what is the most important thing that we have done in a positive way to change the narrative in your judgement so that we can look at that as a gold star. I think we have actually made progress on issues like Domestic Violence. 50 years ago, you know, Domestic Violence was seen as i a joke. The honey mondayers was a comedy show where people would joke about, men would joke about hitting their wives. There was something that we tolerated about the violence and abuse that women suffered in the home. And then that narrative began to shift. And we still have a long way to go. But now you see sports leagues that are actually taking action against athletes because its becoming unacceptable to tolerate, to look the other way w that kind of violence. Thats a shift in the narrative. I think in the environmental context weve seen that. There was a time when we thought spraying cans and consuming fossil fuels was the only way that we could use energy. And now weve realized thats destroying the planet and were shifting. We have recyclable bins, we talk about green energy. We talk about doing things that are going to protect us. That is a shift rooted in an understanding that the narratives that we grew up with, about what is healthy and acceptable have to change. We havent done that in the Racial Justice space. We havent. Weve looked for short cuts, if we let Jackie Robinson play baseball, well be okay. If we let black people play basketball that will be okay. If a black man is elected president. Well be okay. And those short cuts dont work. You cant have a magic pill. Rose has the president done all that he can in your judgement. I dont think the president started his term wanting to be a black president , trying to address these issues. I think he actually wanted to be the opposite am i think as he has persisted in this presidency hes actually recognized that he is being perceived as a black president and we have to talk about these issues more broadly. So he has done some things tiek particularly in the last couple of years that i think are really positive. But i teurlly think all president s should be doing more on this issue. I also think we cant look to our president to solve this problem. Rose exactly right. We have to have our governors an mayors in our communities and School Boards and educators. Rose and our grass roots. And our grass roots being active. This is not something that one person can solve. That is why we are starting with the museum and a memorial in a community with the hope that we can bring people. Rose i want to look at this. That is the memorial. Its this massive structure which sits on a rise in montgomery, alabama. Rose why montgomery. Because are you from montgomery. Montgomery was the cad elf the confederacy. It was where in many ways resis tangs to ending slavery t was a place where terror was wide spread. It was the birth place of the Civil Rights Movement. I think montgomery is a Perfect Place for this, because if anything, weve got to tell these stories in the spaces where theyve happened. And weve got to do it in places where there is going to be some resistance. Rose was there any resistance to this idea in montgomery, alabama. Were just kind of getting public about it were in the early days. Im sure there will absolutely be some resistance am but those columes were all representative of thousands of people who were lynched. Rose how many columes. There is going to be 800 columes for every county in america where a lynching took place and the names of lynching