Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy is almost like a real-life version of To Kill A Mockingbird. It is a story of multiple cases in which people were wrongly or unfairly convicted. Bryan Stevenson is the attorney who represents these people for free. Many of these cases show how race plays an unfair role in the criminal justice system. Not only are minorities treated unfairly, but so are the mentally ill and minors. The main character who was wrongfully convicted is a black man from Alabama named Walter McMillian. After the murder of a well-liked young white girl, the police can't find anyone to arrest. When Walter is accused by a white man, he is quickly arrested, despite his alibi of being at a fish fry with dozens of people miles away at the time of the murder. Although Stevenson ultimately manages to fight and prove Walter's innocence, he ends up spending six years on death row, leaving him traumatized and scarred. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Bryan Stevenson works for a nonprofit agency that provides lawyers free of charge to those who are wrongfully convicted. There are a number of programs like this across the country. An example of this type of agency is the South Alabama Volunteer Lawyers Program based in Mobile, Alabama. According to their website, they have over 855 volunteer attorneys who work with low-income clients on some types of civil cases. Bryan Stevenson's practice in Montgomery, Alabama is very similar to the South Alabama Volunteer Lawyer Program. According to his book and his LinkedIn page, he is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, or EJI. On the EJI website, there are a series of tabs at the top that list issues important to the organization. It has a Racial Justice tab, a Children in Prison tab, a Mass Incarceration tab, a Death Penalty tab, and a Just Mercy tab. Under the Racial Justice tab, there are three subtabs titled “Evolution of Slavery,” which gives the reader a brief history of the enslavement of Black people in America, “Legacy of Lynching,” which gives us a moderately long history and background of the lynching of African Americans in the South, “Resistance to Civil Rights,” gives us an overview of the civil rights movement and the backlash African Americans faced for standing up for what was right, and finally The “Presumption of Guilt” explains essentially how African Americans are and have always been presumed inferior by the dominant (white) culture, which makes them more deserving of being incarcerated and enslaved because it is for their own good. Stevenson describes his program as volunteer-based. Although it is a private practice, everyone who uses its services is affected by the state's criminal justice system. During the time the book was published, EJI was just starting out, so Stevenson was unable to take on as many clients as possible now that his practice is quite well developed. This meant that some people left without receiving any service and were put to death. However, Stevenson took on as many clients as possible. Although in the 1980s racism and segregation were clearly not permitted by laws, such as Jim Crow laws, racism was (and is) still strongly practiced and rooted especially in Southern culture. This meant that it also had repercussions on the criminal justice system,.