He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole.
Stevenson 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 twelve states of the South from 1877 to 1950.
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.
[2] 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".
[3] Stevenson's father, having grown up in the area, took the ingrained racism in his stride, but his mother openly opposed the de facto segregation.
[6] During law school, as part of a class on race and poverty litigation with Elizabeth Bartholet, he worked for Stephen Bright's Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that represents death-row inmates throughout the South.
When the United States Congress eliminated funding for death-penalty defense, Stevenson converted the center and founded the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery.
[1] In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that the death penalty was unconstitutional for persons convicted of crimes committed under the age of 18.
Stevenson worked to have the court's thinking about appropriate punishment broadened to related cases applying to children convicted under the age of 17.
[3] Stevenson acquired six acres of former public housing land in Montgomery for the development of a new project, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, to commemorate the nearly 4,000 persons who were lynched in the South from 1877 to 1950.
Stevenson has argued that this history of extrajudicial lynchings by white mobs is closely associated with the subsequent high rate of death sentences imposed in Alabama and other southern states, and to their disproportionate application to minority people.
[13] Exhibits in the former slave warehouse include materials on lynching, racial segregation, and mass incarceration since the late 20th century.
[14] Stevenson wrote the critically acclaimed memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, published in 2014 by Spiegel & Grau.
[19] Following his presentation, attendees at the conference contributed more than $1 million to fund a campaign run by Stevenson to end the practice of placing convicted children to serve sentences in adult jails and prisons.
[30] In June 2017, Stevenson delivered the 93rd Ware Lecture at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Host Phoebe Judge talked with Stevenson about his experiences during his 30 years spent working to get people off death row, and about his take on those deserving of mercy.
[34] On May 21, 2021, Freedom, Justice, and Hope with Bryan Stevenson premiered on Jazz at Lincoln Center where he provided reflections on the American narrative of racism and performed pieces on the piano such as "Honeysuckle Rose".
[37] On October 5, 2023, Stevenson spoke at the President's Leadership Forum held by Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington, where he received an honorary doctorate.
[38] In November 2018, Stevenson received the Benjamin Franklin Award from the American Philosophical Society as a "Drum major for justice and mercy.