This virtual event is available for ticket holders to replay for one week
SUMMARY
-
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Bryan Stevenson
-
American Injustice: Mercy, Humanity and Making a Difference
-
MacArthur Fellow, human rights activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative
-
Spearheaded Alabama’s Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice
-
Author of the bestselling memoir Just Mercy, which was adapted into an acclaimed feature film of the same name
-
Part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Race to Justice series
-
Ticket holders will be able to replay this event for one week
-
Friday, April 30 / 5 p.m. Pacific / Virtual
-
$10 General Public and FREE for UCSB Students (registration required)
-
Tickets/Info: (805) 893-3535, www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu
? ? ? Editors/Reviewers: Please include the full name of UCSB Arts & Lectures in all media coverage, including reviews.
“[Stevenson] believes that the opposite of poverty is not wealth but justice; that all human beings are more than the worst thing they’ve ever done; and that racial healing cannot take place until the country faces the truth about its history.”
The Washington Post
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Bryan Stevenson for American Injustice: Mercy, Humanity and Making a Difference on Friday, April 30 at 5 p.m. Pacific. One of the nation’s visionary legal thinkers and social justice advocates, Stevenson has spent nearly four decades seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. A MacArthur Fellow, he is an attorney, human rights activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. He spearheaded Alabama’s Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the first national memorial to victims of white supremacy, which opened in 2018. Stevenson is the subject of HBO’s 2019 documentary True Justice and his bestselling memoir Just Mercy was adapted into an acclaimed feature film of the same name.
This presentation will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Christopher McAuley, UC Santa Barbara associate professor of Black Studies.
The virtual event is part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Race to Justice series.
ABOUT
BRYAN STEVENSON
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Stevenson 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 and his staff have won reversals, relief or release from prison for over 135 wrongly-condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger.
Stevenson has also led the creation of two cultural sites which opened in 2018, The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. The new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching and racial segregation and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias. Stevenson’s work has won him numerous awards including 35 honorary doctorates, the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize and the ABA Medal, the American Bar Association’s highest honor. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government and the author of the award winning New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy.
CHRISTOPHER MCAULEY
An associate professor in the UC Santa Barbara Department of Black Studies, Christopher McAuley received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. Dr. McAuley’s areas of research are northern and southern African politics, world systems theory, Black intellectual history, Caribbean and Latin American political economy and economic history of the Americas. In 1990 he received the Ford Foundation and Center for African-American and African Studies (CAAS), University of Michigan Summer Research Fellowship in Ghana. His publication The Mind of Oliver C. Cox appeared in 2004. He is currently working on a comparative study of the politics and scholarship of Max Weber and W.E.B. Du Bois.
RACE TO JUSTICE
Race to Justice: This is a moment of reckoning. As a nation, we are confronting evidence of inequality that reaches every corner of society. Arts & Lectures has a history of bringing complex issues to the forefront. Now, we are spearheading an in-depth look at systemic racism from every angle, including abolition, underlying conditions, reparations, criminal justice and more. Interdisciplinary and cross-departmental, this season-long series engages leading activists, creatives and thinkers to expand our understanding of racism and how race impacts society and to inspire an expansive approach to advancing racial equality.
UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Arts & Lectures annually presents more than a hundred events, from critically-acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Bryan Stevenson is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Part of the Race to Justice series.
Tickets are $10 for the general public and FREE for UCSB students (registration required).
For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Event Sponsors: Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli
Race to Justice Lead Sponsors: Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Patty & John MacFarlane, Sara Miller McCune, Santa Barbara Foundation, Lynda Weinman & Bruce Heavin, Dick Wolf, and Zegar Family Foundation.
Race to Justice UC Santa Barbara Campus Partners: Department of Black Studies, Center for Black Studies Research, Division of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, Division of Mathematical, Life and Physical Sciences, Division of Student Affairs, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, Graduate Division, Bren School for Environmental Science & Management, College of Creative Studies, College of Engineering, MultiCultural Center, Carsey-Wolf Center, The Program in Latin American and Iberian Studies, UCSB Library | UCSB Reads, Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor.
Race to Justice Media Sponsors: Santa Barbara Independent, KCRW, Voice Magazine, Noozhawk.
Most Race to Justice events are hour-long programs and include an audience Q&A.
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners theNatalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2020-2021 season.
