Bryan Stevenson on teaching history and the pursuit of justice
The attorney who helped save 145 wrongly-convicted prisoners from execution talks about his latest project: The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala., educating Americans about the history of slavery and racial violence as a first step in healing.
cbsnews.comExpanded museum traces legacy of slavery in America
The exhibit is part on an expanded museum created by the Equal Justice Initiative that focuses on the legacy of slavery in America. The expanded Legacy Museum — a companion to the group’s well-known memorial to lynching victims — opens Friday and takes visitors on a journey through the origins of the slave trade through the civil rights era to modern criminal justice issues. The museum ranges from the eras of enslavement, lynching, and Jim Crow laws to mass incarceration and modern criminal justice issues that are the focus of the Equal Justice Initiative’s legal work. The 40,000-square foot (3,700-square meter) Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery, Alabama sits on the site of a former cotton warehouse. The Equal Justice Initiative opened the Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in 2018.
wftv.comLynching memorial organizers plan slavery museum expansion
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — (AP) — The organization that created the nation's first memorial to lynching victims has announced a major expansion of a museum designed to trace the impact of slavery and racism through the centuries. The Equal Justice Initiative announced Tuesday that it is moving and expanding its Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, which explores the consequences of enslavement, mob violence, and Jim Crow laws. In 2018, it opened the museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice which remembers lynching victims. The museum and memorial was the nation's first site to document racial inequality in America from slavery through Jim Crow to the issues of today, the organization said. The museum will be relocated to another part of downtown Montgomery in the same building that currently holds EJI’s Legacy Pavilion.
wftv.comLynching memorial organizers plan slavery museum expansion
The organization that created the nation’s first memorial to lynching victims has announced a major expansion of a museum designed to trace the impact of slavery and racism through the centuries. The Equal Justice Initiative announced Tuesday that it is moving and expanding its Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, which explores the consequences of enslavement, mob violence, and Jim Crow laws. EJI’s Executive Director Bryan Stevenson said an understanding and appreciation of that history is needed “if we are going to evaluate contemporary issues in a thoughtful way.”
news.yahoo.comJames McBride among those honored by Center for Fiction
NEW YORK – Author James McBride and editor Chris Jackson were among those honored Thursday night by the Center for Fiction. Jackson, whose authors range from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Bryan Stevenson, was given the Medal for Editorial Excellence Award. Jackson runs the One World imprint of Penguin Random House. The Center for Fiction awarded its First Novel Prize to Raven Leilani for “Luster,” the story of a young Black woman's affair with a married, middle-aged white man. Finalists included this year's Booker Prize winner, Douglas Stuart's “Shuggie Bain.”
Belarus activist shares ‘Alternative Nobel’ with 3 others
FILE - In this Saturday, June 21, 2014 file photo, Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski is welcomed by his supporters at a railway terminal in Minsk, Belarus. The prominent Belarus opposition figure Ales Bialiatski and leading imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh have been awarded the 2020 Swedish Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the Alternative Nobel, along with activists from Nicaragua and the United States. (AP Photo/Dmitry Brushko, File)STOCKHOLM – A prominent Belarus opposition figure and an imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer on Thursday were awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the “Alternative Nobel,” together with activists from Nicaragua and the United States. Created in 1980, the annual Right Livelihood Award honors efforts that the prize founder, Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull, felt were being ignored by the Nobel prizes. Earlier recipients of the Right Livelihood Award include Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Film academy to host virtual panels about inclusion, equity
Lee Daniels, Lulu Wang and Taraji P. Henson are among the talent participating in a series of virtual panels about inclusion and equity in Hollywood hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The organization that puts on the Oscars said Thursday that the panels rolling out through September and October will be available to the public. Entitled Academy Dialogues: It Starts with Us, the series is part of the film academys push to further equity and inclusion in its ranks and in the entertainment industry. The series launched last month with a conversation between Whoopi Goldberg and civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson about the power of narrative. Its currently available on YouTube.
Williamson back in NBA quarantine, could be out on Tuesday
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. Zion Williamson will be out of quarantine by the time New Orleans plays in the first official game of the NBA restart at Walt Disney World. The NBA said Saturday that Williamson will have to serve a four-day quarantine for leaving the leagues Disney bubble on July 16 to tend to an urgent family matter. He returned to Disney on Friday night and immediately went into quarantine. The most important thing is we hope everythings OK with him, Pelicans forward Derrick Favors said Saturday, shortly after the NBA revealed the four-day quarantine determination. COACHES PINSNBA coaches started wearing a large pin during games this weekend, the message reading Coaches for Racial Justice.Its not uncommon for NBA coaches to wear pins or ribbons to support various causes.
Juneteenth: A day of joy and pain - and now national action
In just about any other year, Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the day in 1865 that all enslaved black people learned they had been freed from bondage, would be marked with a cookout, a parade, or a community festival. But Juneteenth 2020 will be a day of protest in may places Friday, June 19. The day is recognized in 47 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation. Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order recognizing Juneteenth as a paid holiday for state employees. So Juneteenth is a celebratory event but were not celebrating the country.
Report documents nearly 2,000 Reconstruction-era lynchings
The Equal Justice Initiative said it has now documented nearly 6,500 lynchings of black people between 1877 and 1950. The Equal Justice Initiative said it has now documented nearly 6,500 lynchings of black people between 1877 and 1950. The group, which previously documented 4,500 lynchings, on Tuesday released a new report titled Reconstruction in America that documents nearly an additional 2,000 lynchings between 1865 and 1876. In one lynching documented in the report, Perry Jeffreys, his wife, and four sons were killed in Georgia after a mob learned they planned to vote for presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a memorial to lynching victims, opened in 2018.
'Just Mercy,' drama of racial injustice, to be free in June
NEW YORK The 2019 film Just Mercy, which chronicles courtroom struggles against racial injustice and mass incarceration, will be made free on digital platforms throughout June in the wake of George Floyd's death, Warner Bros. said Tuesday. In the film, Michael B. Jordan plays attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, who helps a character played by Jamie Foxx. We believe in the power of story, Warner Bros. said. The rider was initiated as a way to change long-term under-representation of people of color and women in Hollywood. Recent studies have shown that films like Just Mercy are starting to reshape the film industry.
Warner Brothers to stream racial injustice movie Just Mercy for free
As protests rage across the U.S. over the death of George Floyd, Warner Brothers says it wants to help the nation understand where the anger is coming from. The companys 2019 movie, Just Mercy, can be streamed for free on various digital platforms through the end of the month. In a statement, Warner Brothers says it wants to help people learn more about the systematic racism that plagues our society. The company also says the movie can help viewers understand how past injustices led the nation to where it is today. Warner Brothers, like CNN, is a division of Warner Media.
Books on race and criminal justice top bestseller lists
NEW YORK As nationwide protests against racism and police violence continue, readers are seeking out books old and new on race and criminal justice. Robin Diangelo's White Fragility," Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy were among the works high on the bestseller lists Tuesday of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com. Popular books also included James Baldwin's classic The Fire Next Time, published more than 50 years ago, and a board book for children from National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi, Antiracist Baby, that comes out next week. Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, winner of the National Book Award in 2015, is an open letter to the author's son that centers on the murder of an old friend by police. Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give is a popular young adult novel, adapted into a feature film of the same name, about a young girl who sees her best friend killed at the hands of police.
Georgia man's death raises echoes of US racial terror legacy
The footage of Arbery’s death was not the only thing that rattled the nation’s conscience. “The slothfulness and inaction of the judicial system, in this case, is a gross testament to the blatant white racial privileges that permeates throughout our country and our institutions." A Georgia Bureau of Investigation statement said the McMichaels confronted Arbery with two firearms and that Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery. While likening Arbery’s death to a lynching may seem like an apt comparison, doing so isn’t sufficient for understanding why the man’s death is a tragedy, said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Alabama-based Equal Justice Initiative. The organization has cataloged more than 4,400 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. that took place between Reconstruction and World War II.
From the 60 Minutes archives: The true story behind "Just Mercy"
In November 1992, an Alabama man who had been on death row for almost six years told 60 Minutes the state was preparing to execute the wrong person. Convicted of robbing and murdering the clerk of a dry cleaning shop in Monroeville, Walter McMillian told correspondent Ed Bradley he have never even been to the Alabama town. That one person had lied on the stand, which Stevenson proved to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in the months after the 60 Minutes report aired. The court overturned the conviction, and on March 2, 1993, Johnny D. left the courtroom as a free man. Michael B. Jordan plays the idealistic defense attorney, and Jamie Foxx plays Johnny D. The film opens in theaters nationwide on Friday.
cbsnews.comKim Kardashian West joins fight to save Texas death row inmate
(CNN) - Kim Kardashian West is joining the fight to save a Texas death row inmate set to be executed next month. Greg Abbott on Saturday about the upcoming execution of Rodney Reed. Reed has spent over 21 years on death row for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Texas. The court eventually ruled against Reed, which led prosecutors to seek a new execution date. She has been working with lawyers and activists in a national bipartisan advocacy group for criminal justice reform.
Equal Justice Initiative founder on race, police and how to move forward
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit group dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions. His team represents clients whose cases may be marked by racial bias or prosecutors' misconduct, and they have helped more than 115 wrongfully-condemned death row prisoners. Stevenson joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss how the inadequate acknowledgment of the racial inequality in the U.S. impacts tensions today.
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