Mr. Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned.
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Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced.
Mr. Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias.
Just Mercy
A powerful true story about the Equal Justice Initiative, the people we represent, and the importance of confronting injustice, Just Mercy is a bestselling book by Bryan Stevenson that has been adapted into a feature film.
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
Bryan Stevenson
True Justice
This HBO documentary follows Bryan Stevenson and EJI’s struggle to create greater fairness in the criminal justice system. It reveals how racial injustice emerged, evolved, and continues to threaten America and challenges viewers to confront it.
Related Resources
TED Talk: We Need to Talk About an InjusticeVideoTED Talk
Bryan Stevenson: From the Courtroom to HollywoodVideoBookTube
The Legacy of Lynching, on Death RowThe New Yorker
Bryan Stevenson on His ‘Not Entirely Rational’ Quest for JusticeNew York Magazine
The 1619 Project: Slavery and Our Criminal Justice SystemThe New York Times Magazine