The acclaimed film portrays Bryan Stevenson’s successful battle to prove a death row convict’s innocence – a case that launched his life’s work of confronting America’s racism
![Just Mercy: new film that captures the start of a brilliant civil rights career](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/698e8622f16c90e72e6cdb97ddc68a1abf6ed0d8/0_20_8200_4919/master/8200.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=70ba6f3416e77bbce309f53c5c7cce06)
In an emotionally charged scene in the new movie Just Mercy, Jamie Foxx, cast as a death row prisoner named Walter McMillian, accosts the young lawyer who has taken up his case with an uncomfortable truth about being black in the deep south.
“You don’t know what you’re into down here in
Alabama,” he warns. “Here you’re guilty from the moment you’re born.”