Brian Stephenson
| Bryan Stevenson | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Bryan Stevenson November 14, 1959 Milton, Delaware |
| Residence | Montgomery, Alabama |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Eastern University (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.) Harvard Kennedy School (M.P.P.) |
| Occupation | Director of Equal Justice Initiative Professor at New York University School of Law |
| Known for | Founding Equal Justice Initiative |
| Notable work | Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption |
| Parent(s) | Howard & Alice Stevenson |
| Website | BryanStevenson.com |
Bryan A. Stevenson (born November 14, 1959) is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a clinical professor at New York University School of Law. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, 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. Stevenson has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for poor people, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.
He initiated the Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, which will honor the names of each of the nearly 4,000 African Americans lynched in the twelve states of the South from 1877 to 1950. He believes 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. A related museum, From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, will offer interpretations to show the connection between the post-Reconstruction period of lynchings to the high rate of executions and incarceration of people of color in the United States.
Born in 1959, Stevenson grew up in Milton, Delaware, a small rural town located in Southern Delaware. His father Howard Carlton Stevenson, Sr., had grown up in Milton, and his mother Alice Gertrude (Golden) Stevenson, was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her family had moved to the city from Virginia in the Great Migration of the early 20th century. Stevenson has two siblings: an older brother Howard, Jr. and a sister Christy. Both parents commuted to the northern part of the state for work: Howard, Sr. worked at a General Foods processing plant as a laboratory technician. His mother, Alice, was a bookkeeper at Dover Air Force Base and became an equal opportunity officer. She particularly emphasized the importance of education.
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