Our August book club discussion was Just Mercy.
Just Mercy is a true story by Bryan Stevenson which follows his career as a young black lawyer leaving Harvard and moving to Alabama in 1989 to try to help fight for poor people who cannot afford legal representation. He finds a system that is full of people who are unjustly accused based on their economic status, their intelligence, social background and nationality. Bryan goes to work for the Equal Justice Initiative. The work he has done over the past 30 years has changed the landscape of prisons, but it still has a long way to go.
The main story focuses on the case of Walter McMillian, an African American man who is accused of murdering a white woman. He was innocent and there was very little evidence to support his conviction, but even after his immediate arrest (before conviction) he is thrown into death row. The crimes that were committed TO him while he was in prison and until his conviction was overturned were mind-boggling.
I think many of us take for granted having a strong support system, loving parents, a nice house to live in, with everything we need to be comfortable. Not everyone has that kind of life. One statement he makes in the book is that “we must reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent.”
I would never have read this book if it had not been a book club selection, but I am glad I read it, and I think most of us felt that way. From our discussion, I think only one person really liked the book, but several of us thought it was very well written and a discussion of merit. It was easy to read because of how well it was written, but you could only read so much before you had to pause a bit. It is a thought-provoking book with some very hard truths, showcasing some gut-wrenching problems in our criminal justice system. The book was not an uplifting, feel good read, and for some in our book club, they found it quite difficult to read.
Two finished it this weekend. It opened my eyes to many challenges I never thought of before, or made me think about them a bit more deeply. A timely read for sure.
The book was also made into a movie which was released last year. I haven't watched it yet.