Ricky Jackson has become a hero to all who have met him. The injustice he faced—serving a 39-year prison sentence, some of it on death row, for a crime he did NOT commit—is unfathomable to us. He was convicted on the basis of a false testimony of a 12 year old boy. But even more remarkable is the grace and humility he carries in the wake of that injustice; the first thing he did when he was released was forgive his accuser.

Ricky Jackson grew up in Cleveland and as a young child spent countless hours wandering through the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 1975, at nineteen years old, he was convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. He was within a month of his execution date when his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Jackson spent almost his entire adult life—over thirty-nine years—in state prison before he was officially exonerated in 2015 at age fifty-eight. At the time of his release, he was the longest-serving innocent man in U.S. history.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx