In 1983, Bryan Stevenson is a 23-year-old Harvard Law student. He grew in a “poor, rural, racially segregated settlement” (12) in Delaware, a place where white people displayed Confederate flags despite living in a former Union state. Black families like Stevenson’s were excluded and marginalized. His grandmother, the daughter of former slaves, reminds Stevenson that he must stay close to his heritage—he cannot learn about anything from a distance.

Despite having no real background in law, Bryan decided to obtain a law degree as a means to solving racial injustice in America. He found his classes at Harvard Law School to be overly academic, “disconnected from the race and poverty issues that had motivated [Stevenson] to consider the law in the first place” (4). In the summer before his third and final year, Stevenson takes a position as an intern for the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, an organization designed to support and aid prisoners, particularly those on death row. One day, Stevenson is asked to visit a Georgian death row prisoner. The SPDC does not yet have a lawyer available, so Stevenson is sent to communicate one thing to this prisoner, named Henry: “You will not be killed in the next year” (7).