The Legacy Sites

‘This book models the critical role that art and public space play in commemorating the history of slavery, and the imperative to fight back against its afterlives.’ – Hyperallergic

Bryan Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a human rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. For over three decades, Stevenson 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 has argued multiple cases before the United States Supreme Court and has won landmark rulings, including bans on mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for children. He is the visionary behind EJI’s Legacy Sites: the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park - three groundbreaking cultural spaces that confront the legacy of slavery, racial terror, segregation, and mass incarceration in America.

Stevenson is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Just Mercy, which was adapted into a major motion picture. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School and has received more than 50 honorary degrees for his work.

Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, The Equal Justice Initiative is a private, nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. EJI challenges the death penalty and excessive punishment and provides re-entry assistance to formerly incarcerated people.

EJI works with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and discouraged by unequal treatment. Committed to changing the narrative about race in America, EJI produces groundbreaking reports, an award-winning calendar, and short films that explore our nation’ history of racial injustice. And in 2018, EJI opened the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the original Legacy Museum, which was then followed by the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. The Legacy Sites are part of EJI’ national effort to create new spaces, markers, and memorials that address the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, a legacy that shapes many issues today.

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