America@250: Bryan Stevenson on a New Narrative Landscape
- Gina Greenlee, Author
- Jul 12
- 5 min read
Renowned human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, reflects on why efforts to erase or soften Black history are intensifying, how fear and false narratives have shaped American law and culture for generations, and why preserving historical truth is essential to the country’s future.
In the Grio interview excerpted in this blog post, Bryan told journalist Natasha Alford, “We have been preparing for a very long time to engage in this narrative struggle that has enveloped this country and the globe. We’re at a moment where the politics of fear and anger are raging. When people allow themselves to be governed by fear and anger they start tolerating things they should never tolerate, they start accepting things they should never accept. We are seeing so many of these shocking things that many of us thought that we would never in the U.S.
“The thing that we haven’t appreciated about the legacy of slavery is how impactful it was, how unhealthy it was for the entire nation. It doesn’t matter if you were in Mississippi or Delaware or Minnesota or California; enslaving 10 million Black people for 246 years did something horrific and unhealthy to the American experience. And because we never confronted it, and we never talked about it, that legacy manifests itself everywhere.”
There is Something Better Waiting for Us
“The four million people who were emancipated after the Civil War had every right to want retribution against those who enslaved them. To want revenge, to hate, to hurt. Instead, they chose citizenship, they chose community. They built churches, they built schools, they created families that could be nurtured and strengthened by love. They rejected the option to hate back. They rejected the option to harm back. And they taught that. And that’s what I’ve been taught.
“I refuse to hate people who engage in the politics of hate. I refuse to fear people who engage in the politics of fear and anger. I’m going to insist that there is something better waiting for us. And I do believe that. I believe that’s not just true for African Americans, I think it’s true for everybody.”
The Narrative America Must Confront
Natasha Alford: When you say fear, there are a lot of people who are afraid right now and they’re worried about what they are going to lose if they speak up.
Bryan: That’s core to the narrative that we have to confront. I often talk about the great evil of American slavery. It wasn’t bondage and the physical violence and the sexual violence, the degradation, humiliation. All of that was absolutely horrific, tortuous, traumatizing. But I think the greatest evil was the narrative we created to justify enslavement. Because the people who enslaved other people didn’t want to think of themselves as immoral or indecent or unjust or unchristian.
So how do you think of yourself as decent and moral when you see a mother being pulled away from her screaming children, knowing that mother will never see her children again because you’re treating her as property and selling her away? Well, you need a narrative. So, we created a false narrative that Black people aren’t as good as White people. That Black people are less capable, less worthy, less human, less evolved. And that narrative was rooted in the fear of having to confront cruelty. Our indecency. Immorality of owning another person, of subjecting them to this torture. And it was also rooted in this idea of trying to make ourselves feel that we’re not bad even when we’re doing these bad things.”
The Persistence of a False Narrative
“And I think that narrative is what survived the Civil War; it’s what’s continuing to create many of the issues that we are dealing with today, The north won the civil war, but the south won the narrative war, those ideas that lead to White supremacy, to racial hierarchy. They persisted and it lead to the collapse of Reconstruction. The courts retreated from the rule of law. They didn’t enforce the 14th and 15th amendments, just like they’re now starting to not enforce the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
“That narrative continued throughout the 20th century, during the time of terror-violence and lynching. During the Civil Rights movement we prevailed in tearing down the legal architecture of apartheid and Jim Crow segregation, but the narrative still persisted.
“So here we are in 2026 where we’re still contending with this narrative. And because of that narrative of racial difference, and these ideas rooted in fear and anger, we’re seeing the resurgence of the worst aspects of American history playing out through this aversion about being honest about history, this very racialized way of seeing the world; demonizing groups of people because of their color or their ethnicity – and we’re moving into an era, not unlike the worst eras of human existence if we give in to this…
“…We’ve got people trying to shut down any teaching about history because they are afraid to confront that history. And so, I don’t want to live in that fear space. I don’t want to live in that anger space. And I actually think our fore parents survived enslavement, survived terror-violence and lynching, survived the degradation and humiliation of segregation because they refused to be governed by fear and anger. They insisted on something better. And because they insisted on something better, I feel I have to insist on something better…
“… Much of the work that we are trying to do is to save everybody from the false idea that you should hide from your history. That you should try to erase the parts of your past that are difficult and challenging, that you should use threat and intimidation and bullying to get what you want. That power is the only thing that matters in the world, that there’s no place for mercy and justice and kindness. That you should ignore and disrespect those who disagree with you. We’re going to push back; we’re going to try to save everyone from what results when you embrace that world.”
Liberation and Freedom
“…I don’t talk about slavery and lynching and segregation because I want to punish America. I want to liberate us. I genuinely think there’s something better waiting for us. Something that feels more like freedom, more like equality, more like justice, and it’s waiting for us. But the way we get there can’t be through denial about harm. Pretending like we’re not the heirs of this legacy of enslavement and bigotry and racial injustice.”
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