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鈥淲e don鈥檛 like to talk about our history,鈥� says Bryan Stevenson in the TED Talk below. 鈥淎nd because of that we really don鈥檛 understand what it has meant to do the things that we鈥檝e done.鈥�

After聽thousands of hours of research, Stevenson’s organization, the聽found that 3,959 black men, women, and children were killed by lynching between 1877 and 1950. That death toll is 700 more killings than previously reported.

Stevenson is a celebrated civil rights attorney as well as founder and director of EJI,聽a nonprofit organization that offers legal representation to people who would otherwise be denied fair treatment within the legal system. The organization鈥檚 latest report, examines how the history of lynching has shaped African-American life today.

“We really don鈥檛 understand what it has meant to do the things that聽we’ve聽done.鈥�

EJI found that both state and local governments were often accepting of or indifferent to lynchings, claiming they could do nothing about 鈥渁ngry mobs鈥� that tortured and killed African-Americans. It鈥檚 behavior like that, says Stevenson, that has perpetuated institutional racism in America鈥攅specially as seen in the South’s mass incarceration of African-Americans.

For Stevensen, the largest evil surrounding African-American history isn鈥檛 slavery, but the pervasiveness of white supremacy and racial differentiation, and the difficulty we have discussing it openly.

鈥淪uffering must be engaged, heard, recognized, and remembered before a society can recover from mass violence,鈥� reads the EJI鈥檚 latest report.

The work that Stevenson continues to do with EJI has spread far beyond criminal justice circles. In fact, world-renowned social rights activist Desmond Tutu recently wrote in聽Vanity Fair聽that聽Stevenson is 鈥渟haping the moral universe.鈥�

In this talk, Stevenson reflects on what鈥檚 wrong with our criminal justice system, how those challenges influence our whole society, and what we can start doing to fix it.