Calvin College January Series 2015 – Remote Live Webcast
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a law practice in Alabama dedicated to defending some of America’s most rejected and marginalized people. His efforts have reversed death penalties for dozens of condemned prisoners. He discusses the explosive rise in inmate populations, the disproportionate use of the death penalty against people of color and the use of life senteces against minors as part of a continuum running through the South’s ugly history of racial inequality, from slavery to Jim Crow to lynching. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called Stevenson “America’s young Nelson Mandela.” He has recently published his debut novel Just Mercy, available in Fall 2014. He is the winner of a number of awards including the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in social justice. This past year his work on behalf of incarcerated minors thrust him into the spotlight. Using scientific and criminological data, he has argued for a new understanding of adolescents and culpability. His efforts led to a Supreme Court ruling effectively barring mandatory life sentences without parole for minors. As a result, approximately 2,000 such cases in the United States may be reviewed.
This lecture will be broadcast via webcast at the Dogwood Center from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Admission is free. For those who would like a lunch ($5) , please call 231.924.8885 to reserve one at least 24 hours in advance of the lecture you would like to attend.
For more information on the Calvin College January Series click here.
The Dogwood Center, a remote site for the Calvin College January Series, is supported in part by the Fremont Area Community Foundation.