ABINGTON, Pa. — A powerful lecture by civil rights activist Bryan Stevenson moved some Penn State Abington students to tears and fired up others to initiate change in the world.
Stevenson, author of the Abington Common Read book "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption," is an attorney and leading voice for criminal justice reform. In a packed Sutherland Auditorium, he shared compelling stories from his own life and his work with the disenfranchised and presented a call to action to the campus community.
Stevenson presented a snapshot of a broken criminal justice system in the United States and offered students solutions to change the world.
“This generation is critical to improving the situation,” he said. “There is a lot of crisis and despair.”
Stevenson offered four solutions to effect change: getting proximate, rewriting the narrative, staying hopeful, and a willingness to do things that are uncomfortable and inconvenient.
The first time Stevenson got proximate was while he was a Harvard Law School student working with a human rights organization that advocated for inmates on death row.
“The first condemned man I ever saw was in chains and shackles, and it took 10 minutes to unchain him,” he said. “We wound up talking for hours.”
“We need to get closer to people who are suffering and disfavored so we can understand their challenges and their pain. We can’t create solutions from a distance,” he continued. “Decide to get closer to people who are suffering, marginalized, disadvantaged, poor. Only in proximity to those who are suffering can we change the world.”