Work for Change

Courage to Listen

“I told him we needed some fans on death row, that it was too hot in the summer to even breathe right. He listened to everything I said. He didn't seem in a rush to finish. He didn't interrupt me. He just listened. It was a powerful thing to be listened to like that.”

Anthony Ray Hinton (The Sun Does Shine, p. 171)

I went to a lecture at Sanford University last night. Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent thirty years on death row at Holman prison for a crime he didn't commit, spoke about love and forgiveness. He spoke about a broken justice system that incarcerates poor people and people of color at the highest rate in the world—our closest competition for this terrible statistic is Turkmenistan. He spoke about the way he and a Ku Klux Klan member became friends in prison; in fact, Hinton, a black man, was invited to the man's final meal before he was executed. He spoke of God sending him the very best lawyer after many failed attempts to get his case reopened. This man, Bryan Stevenson, was the first to listen and believe him, the first to care enough to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where all nine justices voted to reopen it. He was exonerated and released from death row simply because someone with authority listened and believed.

Oprah chose Anthony Ray Hinton's book for her Book Club, and it's now going to be made into a movie. Alabama will once again be in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Instead of addressing the rate of incarceration in our prison system, which is under orders from the federal bench to clean up its act, our governor opts to build three new prisons to ease the overcrowding. Those prisons will be privately owned and operated. Mass incarceration is now big business in which some people are making millions of dollars. What is that if not secondary slavery? Does it qualify as human trafficking?

Racism belongs to the dustbin of history. It has no place in the world now. One wonders how many more years will pass before we are healed from this terrible affliction. I was happy to see the lecture hall full last night. At least a thousand people attended, and gave Hinton a standing ovation. We listened. The more people listen, the less likely we are to unconsciously engage in supporting racism. Hinton spoke directly to the young people in the audience. He asked them to take up the mantle and stand against an unjust system. He asked them to show up and vote in every election. He admitted that our generation had failed to change the system, had by our indifference, inaction, and just plain laziness, allowed innocent people to be incarcerated and even executed simply because they had no money to hire a lawyer to represent them. And those young people listened and asked questions.

Having the courage to listen is a very big deal. To listen with the intent to learn and then to act is even more important. Racism is an affliction of our collective soul. Wrapping it in the cloak of religion is truly disgusting. Until we are able to look this terrible injustice squarely in the eye and work to change it, we are complicit. We cannot be a “godly nation” or a “Christian nation” as long as we are consciously or unconsciously engaged in racism. We must listen with our hearts and souls. And then we must work for change.

                                                     In the Spirit,

                                                        Jane