Bryan Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and a professor of law at New York University Law School. He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color. He has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.
“Just Mercy is every bit as moving as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in
some ways more so. . . . [It] demonstrates, as powerfully as any
book on criminal justice that I’ve ever read, the extent to which
brutality, unfairness, and racial bias continue to infect criminal
law in the United States. But at the same time that [Bryan]
Stevenson tells an utterly damning story of deep-seated and
widespread injustice, he also recounts instances of human
compassion, understanding, mercy, and justice that offer hope. . .
. Just Mercy is a remarkable amalgam, at once a searing indictment
of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the
salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.”—David
Cole, The New York Review of Books
“A searing, moving and infuriating memoir . . . Bryan Stevenson
may, indeed, be America’s Mandela. For decades he has fought
judges, prosecutors and police on behalf of those who are
impoverished, black or both. . . . Injustice is easy not to notice
when it affects people different from ourselves; that helps explain
the obliviousness of our own generation to inequity today. We need
to wake up. And that is why we need a Mandela in this
country.”—Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times
“Unfairness in the justice system is a major theme of our age. . .
. This book brings new life to the story by placing it in two
affecting contexts: [Bryan] Stevenson’s life work and the deep
strain of racial injustice in American life. . . . You don’t have
to read too long to start cheering for this man. Against tremendous
odds, Stevenson has worked to free scores of people from wrongful
or excessive punishment, arguing five times before the Supreme
Court. . . . The book extols not his nobility but that of the
cause, and reads like a call to action for all that remains to be
done. . . . The message of the book, hammered home by dramatic
examples of one man’s refusal to sit quietly and countenance
horror, is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be
made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you
hopeful. . . . Stevenson has been angry about [the criminal justice
system] for years, and we are all the better for it.”—Ted
Conover, The New York Times Book Review
“Not since Atticus Finch has a fearless and committed lawyer made
such a difference in the American South. Though larger than life,
Atticus exists only in fiction. Bryan Stevenson, however, is very
much alive and doing God’s work fighting for the poor, the
oppressed, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the outcast, and those
with no hope. Just Mercy is his inspiring and powerful
story.”—John Grisham
“Bryan Stevenson is one of my personal heroes, perhaps the most
inspiring and influential crusader for justice alive today,
and Just Mercy is extraordinary. The stories told within
these pages hold the potential to transform what we think we mean
when we talk about justice.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The
New Jim Crow
“A distinguished NYU law professor and MacArthur grant recipient
offers the compelling story of the legal practice he founded to
protect the rights of people on the margins of American society. .
. . Emotionally profound, necessary reading.”—Kirkus Reviews
(starred review, Kirkus Prize Finalist)
“A passionate account of the ways our nation thwarts justice and
inhumanely punishes the poor and disadvantaged.”—Booklist (starred
review)
“From the frontlines of social justice comes one of the most urgent
voices of our era. Bryan Stevenson is a real-life, modern-day
Atticus Finch who, through his work in redeeming innocent people
condemned to death, has sought to redeem the country itself. This
is a book of great power and courage. It is inspiring and
suspenseful—a revelation.”—Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth
of Other Suns
“Words such as important and compelling may have lost their force
through overuse, but reading this book will restore their meaning,
along with one’s hopes for humanity.”—Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer
Prize–winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains
“Bryan Stevenson is America’s young Nelson Mandela, a brilliant
lawyer fighting with courage and conviction to guarantee justice
for all. Just Mercy should be read by people of conscience in every
civilized country in the world to discover what happens when
revenge and retribution replace justice and mercy. It is as
gripping to read as any legal thriller, and what hangs in the
balance is nothing less than the soul of a great nation.”—Desmond
Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
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