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A review by laurenkd89
A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law by Bryan Stevenson, Loretta Lynch, Sherrilyn Ifill
5.0
This book - a conversation between four of the most prominent minds in criminal justice working today - affected me profoundly in ways that are difficult to describe. This discussion, led by NYU Law Professor Anthony Thompson and including former AG Loretta Lynch, NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill, and Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, spans the issues of race, class, slavery, lynching, education, housing, and more in roughly 100 pages.
Other reviewers have said that all of these folks are speaking in an echo chamber, but they must have missed the point of this. Of course they're an echo chamber - they're four Black civil rights practitioners who have witnessed the same systemic inequality and racism across the United States and have gathered the same takeaways from their personal and professional experiences. Hearing from these similar but unique perspectives cements the fact that there are clear solutions and actionable items to address these pervasive issues.
As always, the perspectives that made me most emotional were Bryan Stevenson's. His words are incredibly powerful - he's one of those people who is infinitely quotable and wise. I know that I will come back to his reflections over and over, particularly his response to Thompson's last question on how to remain hopeful. This book is worth it for that story alone.
A Perilous Path was available from my local library for free on Hoopla and I read it in the span of a few hours, and I cannot recommend it enough - if anything, to energize and galvanize you.
Other reviewers have said that all of these folks are speaking in an echo chamber, but they must have missed the point of this. Of course they're an echo chamber - they're four Black civil rights practitioners who have witnessed the same systemic inequality and racism across the United States and have gathered the same takeaways from their personal and professional experiences. Hearing from these similar but unique perspectives cements the fact that there are clear solutions and actionable items to address these pervasive issues.
As always, the perspectives that made me most emotional were Bryan Stevenson's. His words are incredibly powerful - he's one of those people who is infinitely quotable and wise. I know that I will come back to his reflections over and over, particularly his response to Thompson's last question on how to remain hopeful. This book is worth it for that story alone.
A Perilous Path was available from my local library for free on Hoopla and I read it in the span of a few hours, and I cannot recommend it enough - if anything, to energize and galvanize you.