Organizers of UW-Madison’s Go Big Read program announced Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” as next year’s shared reading novel Thursday, hoping to incite deeper thoughts on Madison’s racial inequalities through the text, a UW-Madison news release said.
Stevenson’s work began in the 1980s when he co-founded the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal representation to needy defendants and prisoners who believe they have been treated unfairly by the legal system.
“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” tells the story of one of Stevenson’s first cases, in which a black Alabama business man named Walter McMillan is sentenced to die for the murder of a white woman he did not commit.
With many students and Madison community members engaging in racial dialogue following the shooting of Tony Robinson, Go Big Read organizers encouraged book suggestions that would help further those conversations.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank chose Stevenson’s novel, which a selection committee had included in a short list of possibilities from 200 original nominations, the release said.
History professor and member of the Go Big Read review committee William Jones said in the release he will incorporate the novel into his courses to discuss mass incarceration and how it affects the economic and political history of the U.S.
“Stevenson forces us to confront the contradictions between our criminal justice system and our nation’s founding principles of equality, freedom and justice,” Jones said in the release.
Faculty are encouraged to use the novel, like Jones, to find ways of using the text to build connections between themselves, students and the Madison community.
