This is our second TED Talk Tuesday, a series of posts where Wayne Powell from the Powell Law Group in Virginia shares his favorite TED talks about the justice system, crime in America, democracy, the rule of law, and mass incarceration. TED is a nonprofit devoted to welcoming highly-trained professionals, educators, authors, researchers, and creative thinkers from every discipline and culture to spread innovative ideas to national and international conferences and lesson series.

In this video, Bryan Stevenson, human rights lawyer and founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, talks about the hard truths of the American justice system. He focuses on the imbalance of incarceration rates for the African American male population and the power of identity in the pursuit of justice.  Stevenson spends his career fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

After watching, Wayne Powell notes how compelling Bryan Stevenson’s remarks are about how the makeup of our prison system and how the identities of those incarcerated has changed drastically in the past 40 years. Mass incarceration has changed our world, and disproportionately affects poor communities and people of color that shapes future generations. 

Quotes from Stevenson's TED Talk that are particularly powerful and worth highlighting:   

“There is a capacity within every person to contribute to perspective that is hopeful.”

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We cannot be fully, evolved human beings without caring about human rights.”