Bryan Stevenson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Bryan Stevenson
Stevenson in 2012
Born	(1959-11-14) November 14, 1959 (age 65) Milton, Delaware, U.S.
Education	Eastern University (BA) Harvard University (JD, MPP)
Occupation	Director of Equal Justice Initiative Professor at New York University School of Law
Known for	Founding Equal Justice Initiative
Awards	National Humanities Medal (2021)

Bryan Stevenson, born on November 14, 1959, is an American lawyer and a champion for fairness. He teaches law at New York University School of Law. He is also the founder and leader of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).

Based in Montgomery, Alabama, Stevenson has worked hard to fight unfairness. He helps people who are poor or from minority groups in the justice system. He especially focuses on helping children. He has played a big part in getting the U.S. Supreme Court to make important decisions. These decisions stop children under 18 from being sentenced to death or to life in prison without a chance of release.

Stevenson's work was shown in the 2019 film Just Mercy. This movie was based on his 2014 book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. In his book, he shared stories about his work, including helping Walter McMillian. McMillian was a man who was wrongly found guilty and sentenced to death.

Stevenson also started the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery. This memorial remembers the names of over 4,000 African Americans who were killed by mobs in the Southern states between 1877 and 1950. He believes that the history of slavery and these killings has affected how many people are sentenced to death today. He points out that these sentences are often given unfairly to minority groups. A related place, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, helps people understand the link between past injustices and today's high rates of imprisonment and executions for people of color.

Early Life and Influences

Bryan A. Stevenson was born on November 14, 1959, in Milton, Delaware. This was a small town in southern Delaware. His father, Howard Carlton Stevenson Sr., grew up in Milton. His mother, Alice Gertrude (Golden) Stevenson, was from Philadelphia. Her family had moved there from Virginia during the Great Migration. Bryan has an older brother, Howard Jr., and a sister, Christy.

Both of his parents traveled to the northern part of the state for their jobs. His father worked as a lab technician at a food processing plant. His mother was an equal opportunity officer at Dover Air Force Base. She always stressed how important education was for her children.

Stevenson's family went to the Prospect African Methodist Episcopal Church. As a child, he played piano and sang in the choir there. The strong faith of his church influenced his later beliefs. The church taught that people should "stand up after having fallen down." These experiences helped him believe that "each person in our society is more than the worst thing they've ever done."

When Stevenson was 16, his grandfather was killed during a robbery. The people responsible received life sentences, which Stevenson felt was fair. He said that his family believed in "redemption over revenge."

As a child, Stevenson experienced segregation. This was a time when Black and white people were kept separate. He spent his first years in a "colored" elementary school. Even after schools were officially desegregated, old rules still applied. Black children played separately from white children. At the doctor's office, Black families still used the back door. Pools and other places were also unofficially segregated. His mother openly spoke out against this unfairness. Stevenson remembered how his mother protested when Black children had to wait hours for polio vaccinations. They had to line up at the back door while white children went in first.

Education and Finding His Path

Stevenson went to Cape Henlopen High School and finished in 1978. He played soccer and baseball. He was also the student body president and won public speaking contests. His brother, Howard, helped him practice his speaking skills.

Stevenson earned top grades and won a scholarship to Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. There, he led the campus gospel choir. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1981. In 1985, Stevenson earned two advanced degrees from Harvard University. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School and a master's degree in Public Policy.

During law school, he took a class about race and poverty. As part of this class, he worked for the Southern Center for Human Rights. This group helps people on death row in the South. It was during this work that Stevenson realized what he wanted to do with his life.

Career as a Justice Advocate

Southern Center for Human Rights

After finishing Harvard in 1985, Stevenson moved to Atlanta. He joined the Southern Center for Human Rights full-time. The center divided its work by region, and Stevenson was assigned to Alabama. In 1989, he was chosen to lead the Alabama office. This office helped people facing the death penalty. He set up a center in Montgomery, Alabama.

Equal Justice Initiative

When the U.S. Congress stopped funding for death penalty defense, Stevenson started his own non-profit organization. He created the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery. In 1995, he received a special grant called a MacArthur Fellowship. He used all the money to support EJI. He promised to defend anyone in Alabama sentenced to the death penalty. Alabama was the only state that did not provide legal help to people on death row. It also had the highest rate of death penalty sentences per person.

One of EJI's first cases was the appeal of Walter McMillian. McMillian had been sent to death row before being found guilty of murder. Stevenson was able to show that all the evidence against McMillian was wrong. This led to McMillian being set free in 1993.

Stevenson has been especially concerned about very harsh sentences for young people. These are people who committed crimes when they were under 18. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty was unconstitutional for people under 18. Stevenson worked to expand this idea to other cases involving children under 17.

EJI started a legal effort to review cases where children were sentenced to life without parole. This included cases where no one was killed. In Miller v. Alabama (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court made a major decision. They ruled that mandatory life sentences without parole for children 17 and under were unconstitutional. This decision changed laws in 29 states. In 2016, the court ruled in Montgomery v. Louisiana that this decision applied to past cases too. This could affect the sentences of 2300 people nationwide who were sentenced to life as children.

As of 2022, EJI has helped over 130 people avoid the death penalty. They also represent poor people, help with appeals, and overturn wrong convictions. EJI works to reduce unfairness in the justice system.

Remembering History

The EJI offices are close to where enslaved people were brought ashore in Montgomery. They are also near Court Square, a major slave auction site. Stevenson noticed that downtown Montgomery had many markers about Confederate history. But there was nothing about the history of slavery. Slavery was the foundation of wealth in the South and a cause of the Civil War. He suggested placing historical markers at three slavery sites. The state archives department was hesitant due to possible controversy. Stevenson worked with an African-American history group to get support for this project. The group got state approval for the three markers in 2013, and they are now in Montgomery.

National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Stevenson bought land in Montgomery for a new project. This project is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It honors nearly 4,000 people who were killed by mobs in the South from 1877 to 1950. Many of these killings happened openly in front of crowds. Stevenson believes that this history of mob violence is linked to the high number of death sentences today. He also thinks it's connected to how often minority people receive these sentences. He argues that this history influences the unfairness seen in high rates of imprisonment for minorities across the country. The memorial opened in April 2018.

Connected to the Memorial is The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. It also opened on April 26, 2018. The museum is in a former slave warehouse. It has exhibits about mob violence, racial segregation, and mass imprisonment since the late 20th century. Stevenson explains how the treatment of people of color in the justice system is connected to the history of slavery and how minorities were treated later in the South.

Author and Speaker

Stevenson wrote the highly praised book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. It was published in 2014. Time magazine chose it as one of the "10 Best Books of Nonfiction" for 2014. The New York Times also listed it among its "100 Notable Books" that year. It won the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. A movie based on the book, called Just Mercy, came out in 2019. Michael B. Jordan played Stevenson in the film.

Stevenson often gives public speeches. A big reason for this is to raise money for EJI's work. His speech at TED2012 became very popular online. After his talk, people at the conference gave over $1 million to help Stevenson's campaign. This campaign aimed to stop putting children who were found guilty into adult jails and prisons. By April 2020, his talk had been watched over 6.5 million times.

He has also given many graduation speeches and received honorary degrees from universities. These include the University of Delaware, Williams College, College of the Holy Cross, Wesleyan University, and Johns Hopkins University.

Awards and Honors

Bryan Stevenson has received many awards for his important work:

• 1991 ACLU National Medal of Liberty
• 1995 MacArthur Fellow
• 2000 Olof Palme Prize
• 2009 Gruber Prize for Justice
• 2011 Four Freedoms Award in Freedom From Fear
• 2012 Smithsonian magazine's American Ingenuity Award in Social Progress
• 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
• 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction
• 2015 Time 100: The 100 Most Influential People
• 2016 Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Princeton University
• 2017 Honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from the University of Oxford
• 2017 The Stowe Prize for Writing to Advance Social Justice
• 2018 People's Champion Award from the 44th People's Choice Awards
• 2018 The Benjamin Franklin Award for public service from the American Philosophical Society
• 2019 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
• 2019 Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Pennsylvania
• 2020 Right Livelihood Award
• 2020 National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2020 Global Citizen Prize for Global Citizen of the Year
• 2021 The Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence
• 2021 National Humanities Medal
• 2023 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Whitworth University
• 2024 Elected to the American Philosophical Society
• 2025 Stockholm Prize in Criminology
• 2025 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Citizen Leadership from The University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.

Personal Life

Stevenson has never married. He has said that his work is not easy to combine with married life. He has lived in Montgomery, Alabama since 1985.

Adaptations

• Just Mercy (2019), a film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, based on the book Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption