Literary Arts

Bryan Stevenson

Benaroya Hall — S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

March 28, 2017

Co-Presented by The Seattle Times

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Event Description

Bryan Stevenson is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and a professor of law at New York University School of Law. He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color.

His work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, the ABA Wisdom Award for Public Service, the ACLU National Medal of Liberty, the Gruber Prize for International Justice, and the Ford Foundation Visionaries Award.

He is the recent author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy (2014), which was named by TIME as one of 2014’s ten best nonfiction books and has been awarded several honors, including a 2015 NAACP Image Award.

Selected Works
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

Links
Bryan Stevenson’s Website
Equal Justice Initiative
TED Talk: Bryan Stevenson
One Lawyer’s Fight for Young Blacks and Just Mercy

We have in this country this dynamic where we really don’t like to talk about our problems. We don’t like to talk about our history. And because of that, we really haven’t understood what it’s meant to do the things we’ve done historically. We’re constantly running into each other. We’re constantly creating tensions and conflicts. We have a hard time talking about race, and I believe it’s because we are unwilling to commit ourselves to a process of truth and reconciliation.Bryan Stevenson, TED Talk
A searing, moving and infuriating memoir . . . Bryan Stevenson may, indeed, be America’s Mandela. For decades he has fought judges, prosecutors and police on behalf of those who are impoverished, black or both.Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
Inspiring. . . a work of style, substance, and clarity . . . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he’s also a gifted writer and storyteller.The Washington Post