Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founderexecutive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a law professor at New York University School of Law. Stevenson has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He argues that the history of slavery and lynchings has influenced the subsequent high rate of death sentences in the South.

About Bryan Stevenson in brief

Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founderexecutive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a law professor at New York University School of Law. Stevenson has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole. He argues that the history of slavery and lynchings has influenced the subsequent high rate of death sentences in the South, where it has been disproportionately applied to minorities. He was depicted in the legal drama Just Mercy which is based on his memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, which tells the story of Walter McMillian. He initiated the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, which honors the names of each of more than 4,000 African Americans lynched in the 12 states of the South from 1877 to 1950. In 2020, he shared the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the \”Alternative Nobel Prize\”, with Nasrin Sotoudeh, Ales Bialiatski, and Lottie Cunningham Wren.

He spent his first classroom years at a \”colored\” elementary school. His later views were influenced by the strong faith of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where churchgoers were celebrated for “standing up after having fallen down’ Stevenson believes that “each person in our society is more than the worst thing they’ve ever done. ” When Stevenson was 16, his maternal grandfather, Clarence L. Golden, was stabbed to death in his Philadelphia home during a robbery. Stevenson said of the murder: “Because my grandfather was older, his murder seemed particularly cruel. But I came from a world where we valued redemption over revenge.’” “We argued the way brothers argue, but these serious arguments were inspired by our mother and the circumstances of our family,” Stevenson said. “I guess I guess I was inspired by the serious arguments, inspired by my mother and our mother’s circumstances, and the way our family argued, but the way we argued was not right. ’’ “ ““ ‘‘We argued in a way that was very different from the way other people argued,’ said Stevenson. ‘ ‘I was trying to make a point, and I think it was the right thing to do’

Related posts:

Clare Stevenson William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign Melford Stevenson Shakur Stevenson