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Bryan Stevenson, a black attorney who founded the Equal Justice Initiative to defend the poor and wrongly condemned, presents real examples in his book of how blacks are often targeted, accused and convicted of crimes they did not commit.

In his book, Stevenson discusses a few stories of what happens to black families on the outside, but his main focus is the life and treatment black individuals undergo inside prison. The mistreatment black inmates experience includes being forced to stay for hours in tiny “sweat rooms” or small “white rooms” isolated from everyone, or tortured with electric cattle prods for minor infractions. Inmate deaths, suicide, inadequate medical care, guard violence, staff abuse and prisoner-on-prisoner violence claims hundreds of prisoners, many of them minorities, in the United States each year.

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy is an extraordinary, inspiring and powerful book. It discusses the inequality and injustice minority groups (specifically black people) face every single day.

To bring to life what happens and the racism inside those prison walls, the author focuses on the tale of one particularly neglected and hopeless prisoner, Walter McMillian, a young black man wrongly convicted of murder. This businessman made the mistake of sleeping with a married white woman, and he paid the price in his community when residents were quick to accuse him of a murder of another white woman, with the only evidence being someone saw a "low-rider" truck similar to one he later had near where the murder occurred. Stevenson took on this Death Row case because he believed everyone deserves mercy and to be treated fairly. In his investigation, he found that the witness had complained bitterly on tape that he was being forced to implicate McMillian. It seemed everyone was against him: the law, the authorities, all these people who had high power wouldn’t even consider his side of the story until Stevenson, who saw him as a human being, came along.

One story that Stevenson shows us is one of a black teenager (male) who had been shot and killed after being pulled over for running a red light. As the boy reached over to grab his license, the officer immediately thought he was reaching for a weapon and fired his gun at him, though no weapon was found. In another story, we see a thirty-nine year old black man, who had been beaten brutally by the police after being pulled over. He explained that he was in need of his inhaler and even begged the officers to give him it, but the authorities refused and he later died due to their cruel and unusual treatment. Stevenson also states that studies show that black boys routinely have encounters with the police. Even though they have done nothing wrong, they are targeted by police, presumed guilty and suspected by law enforcement of being dangerous or engaged in criminal activity. Just Mercy covers the topic of racism and the targeting of black males by police, both of which have been extensively discussed in the mainstream media and in major academic sources.

Just Mercy was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and named in the 100 Notable Books list in 2014.