Full Transcript for Bryan Stevenson: Changing Perspectives, Challenging Assumptions

been trying to do this mostly alone, which, if you have been following along, is not the best idea. 00:02:40.719 --> 00:02:43.360 I need a partner and collaborator myself. 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:45.520 And with that, who might I seek out? 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:52.479 Someone who is ahead of me that I can learn from, or someone who offers skills and insights I don't presently have. 00:02:52.639 --> 00:03:05.840 So I am considering applying for a PhD program to seek a faculty mentor who is doing research adjacent with my interests and then dig deep into attaining the expertise that I'm seeing people need right now. 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:09.199 I have a particular program I'm looking into here in LA. 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:14.240 It's a PhD in education with a focus on educational psychology. 00:03:14.479 --> 00:03:19.520 For those who are listening for the first time, this community is all about action over ideation. 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:24.159 It's the actions that bring us forward towards our dreams, not the dreaming itself. 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:28.080 And what shoots someone up faster is finding supporters and help. 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:36.800 So while I've sought out these two tenets over the past two years in different ways, I do need to cast my net wider and do the hard thing and try something new. 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:40.159 I hope this works out and I can bring you all along with me. 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:47.120 How fun to already have a platform that I can share what I'm learning in real time with people needing these lessons. 00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:53.759 And don't worry, what I won't be doing is giving you formal language or technical jargon. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:54.879 Not at all. 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:56.319 That is not what I'm about. 00:03:56.479 --> 00:04:03.840 You will get the easy to swallow, entertaining, juicy content instead, with stories and activities to match as always. 00:04:04.879 --> 00:04:14.479 In consideration of my own mental pivot, I wonder if any of you are trying to push through something in the same manner that may have worked before, but is no longer landing. 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:18.959 Maybe you are using the same pattern of problem solving or strategies. 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.240 Maybe you're going to the same people for advice. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:27.360 I wonder what would happen if you added some chaos into your flow and switched it up. 00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:37.199 So this week, your activity is to do just that and see if we can surprise ourselves as we move forward in our work, our ideas, and our goals. 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:45.519 My story I shared about casting my net wider and realizing what was actually happening versus what I wished would be happening was your example. 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:50.480 You will need to use this to apply the same actions to whatever you're working on right now. 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:55.360 I'd love to hear what you came up with for yourself or any

feedback on this podcast. 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:56.959 So send me an email or comment. 00:04:57.120 --> 00:05:00.720 The email is podcast at omcollaborative.com. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:20.000 In line with this month's theme of perception, this week we will hear the story of Brian Stevenson, a social activist, lawyer, and professor who made it his life purpose to change the perspective around those convicted with the death penalty, ceaselessly pushing for redemption over condemnation. 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:34.639 While we explore his story, I want to ask my listeners to reflect on our own perception of people on the outskirts of society and decide if that concept is based on truths, bias, someone else's ideas, or something else. 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:48.079 Something I've personally been working on as a new resident of LA in an area where everyone and everything is all at once is how I see those around me who are dealing with the entire scale of human existence in one space. 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:56.639 From the tech bro to the new mother, to the college student, to the fresh on-the-scene actor, to the mentally ill, to the unhoused. 00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:00.560 Now let's hear the story of Brian Stevenson. 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:14.639 Today in 2026, it may be hard for some of us to realize how little time has passed since people in the United States were segregated based on the color of their skin. 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:18.079 It feels like another world, at least it does to me. 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:26.319 It is so easy to forget and disconnect unless you were witness to it or have a relative who experienced it firsthand. 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:33.040 But Brian Stevenson is only 67, and this is how he first experienced life. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.600 He would be fully segregated at school until second grade. 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:40.000 It was 1966. 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:48.079 And even then, while students would be educated in the same buildings, some still were forced to enter through backdoors. 00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:54.720 Not just at school, but at stores, at restaurants, at doctors' offices. 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:58.639 Like many in the South, the church was the center of the community. 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:14.399 And for Stevenson, the lessons he gained from his time singing in the choir and playing piano for the congregation as a young person would build the foundation in which he would stand on in his studies and his work advocating for those who couldn't advocate for themselves. 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:30.879 This included how important it is to celebrate someone for picking themselves up after they have fallen to the lowest of heights, and never forgetting that the individual is always more than the worst thing they have ever done. 00:07:31.519 --> 00:07:47.839 Even when his grandfather was murdered during a robbery, and those individuals were given life over death, Stevenson stated that he thought the outcome was fair because he came from a world where redemption was valued over revenge. 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.959 Stevenson was only 16 at the time. 00:07:51.199 --> 00:08:02.480 Education became a gateway for Stevenson's expansion, beginning in high school, where he played sports, served as president, and still managed to make straight A's, granting him a scholarship. 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:10.959 He then attended higher education to attain degrees in philosophy, law, and public policy, the latter two from Harvard University. 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:15.519 Stevenson is most well known for the famous case of Walter McMillian. 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:26.319 In this death row case, Stevenson was able to discredit every single piece of the initial case from the prosecution, leading to an exoneration in 1993. 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:34.159 His book about the case was deemed one of the 10 best books in nonfiction by Time magazine. 00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:37.039 A film would later be made from that book. 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:40.159 Both were titled Just Mercy. 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:46.639 Here is an excerpt, Copyright 2014, by Brian Stevenson from Chapter 1. 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:57.200 I was in my late 20s and about to start my fourth year at the SPDC when I met Walter McMillian. 00:08:57.519 --> 00:09:06.480 His case was one of the flood of cases I'd found myself frantically working on after learning of a growing crisis in Alabama. 00:09:06.639 --> 00:09:22.240 The state had nearly 100 people on death row, as well as the fastest growing condemned population in the country, but it also had no public defender system, which meant that large numbers of death row prisoners had no legal representation of any kind. 00:09:22.639 --> 00:09:30.480 My friend Ava Ansley ran the Alabama Prison Project, which tracked cases and matched lawyers with the condemned men. 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:38.879 In 1988, we discovered an opportunity to get federal funding to create a legal center that could represent people on death row. 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:42.320 The plan was to use that funding to start a new nonprofit. 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:47.120 We hoped to open it in Tuscaloosa and begin working on cases in the next year. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:58.080 I'd already worked on lots of death penalty cases in several southern states, sometimes winning a stay of execution just minutes before an electrocution was scheduled. 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:03.360 But I didn't think I was ready to take on the responsibilities of running a nonprofit law office. 00:10:03.519 --> 00:10:08.960 I planned to help get the organization off the ground, find a director, and then return to Atlanta. 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:13.279 When I had visited Death Row a few weeks before that call from Robert E. 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:24.159 Lee Key, I met with five desperate condemned men: Willie Tabb, Vernon Madison, Jesse Morrison, Harry Nix, and Walter McMillian. 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:32.879 It was an exhausting,

emotionally taxing day, and the cases and clients had merged together in my mind on the long drive back to Atlanta. 00:10:33.039 --> 00:10:34.799 But I remembered Walter. 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:43.679 He was at least 15 years older than me, not particularly well educated, and he hailed from a small rural community. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:51.120 The memorable thing about him was how insistent he was that he'd been wrongly convicted. 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:58.799 As an activist, Brian Stevenson has made sure his impact had the farthest reach possible. 00:10:59.039 --> 00:11:06.080 He founded the Equal Justice Initiative, and when he was awarded the MacArthur grant, he poured all of those funds back into it. 00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:18.799 He is equally known for his work against harsh sentences for children under the age of 18, including working with the Supreme Court to broaden their decision against the death penalty for minors outward to other harsh punishments. 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.000 This was in 2005, only 20 years ago. 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:39.279 The National Memorial for Peace and Justice was established by Stevenson after purchasing six acres of land previously used for public housing to commemorate every single person's life taken by lynching in the South between 1877 and 1950. 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:48.000 Stevenson connects this violent time as the echo of the disproportionately severe sentencing of minorities in the South today. 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:53.360 The memorial opened in 2018 and can be visited in Montgomery, Alabama. 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:59.519 Brian Stevenson now spends much of his time in public speaking, from commencement speeches to podcasts. 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:11.120 He has been honored and awarded by domestic and international organizations since the 1990s and most recently won the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership in 2025. 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:23.360 And beyond the template, we have heard many stories of overcoming adversity, but Stevenson is an exceptional example of how one can help others do the same under very extreme circumstances. 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:26.399 I hope his story was inspirational to you today. 00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:29.600 Know you are not alone in your desire to make a change in the world. 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:41.919 Know that it sometimes takes a lifetime to do so, but always remember that by continuing to take action, you make more of a dent into your dream and impact than thinking about doing so. 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:44.159 I hope you all have the best week. 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:55.120 In our next episode, I will share the story of Jan Coom, the founder of WhatsApp, who created something to connect people all over the world, no matter their culture or life experience, for free. 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.320 Until then, my expanders, thanks for listening all. 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:00.799 Keep it up, keep it creative. 00:13:01.759 --> 00:13:03.919 Thank you for listening to Beyond the Template. 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:05.919 My name is Caroline Amelie LeBeuf. 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:13.679 I have a degree in art and in counseling, and also professional level certificates in educational advising and learning design and technology. 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:22.960 The roles I have carried include illustrator, photographer, writer, traveler, mentor, instructor, and most recently entrepreneur.