Bryan Stevenson To Offer Presidential Colloquium
Events
Published March 4, 2021
Activist and attorney Bryan Stevenson—executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award for his work fighting the death penalty—will deliver a Presidential Colloquium on “Just Mercy: The Movement for Justice and Redemption” at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 11. This virtual event is open to the public at no charge. Members of the campus community are invited to participate via Zoom; members of the general public may join via a livestream on Smith’s Facebook page.
About Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. 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.
Stevenson led the creation of EJI's highly acclaimed cultural sites, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in 2018.
For his work, Stevenson has received numerous awards, including 41 honorary doctorates, the MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, and the ABA Medal, the American Bar Association's highest honor.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Stevenson is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestseller “Just Mercy.” In 2019, Warner Brothers released a major motion picture by the same name, based on this book.
About Smith’s Presidential Colloquium Series
The Presidential Colloquium regularly features influential thought leaders in a wide range of fields—from poets and writers to economists and policy experts—to share their expertise, offer insights and inspire discourse on key social, political and global topics that call for our attention. Lectures are free and open to the public.
This year’s upcoming Presidential Colloquia will feature a discussion of the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a talk by philosopher Michael Sandel. All events are virtual in 2021 and are open to the public at no charge; details and registration information are available online.
Photograph by Rog and Bee Walker for the Equal Justice Initiative