EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

DATE: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 7, 2017

EVENT: Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer and social justice activist, will receive the 2016 Wallenberg medal at the University of Michigan. After the medal presentation, Stevenson will give the 25th Wallenberg Lecture.

Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization he founded in 1989 that focuses on social justice and human rights in the context of criminal justice reform in the United States.

EJI litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, people wrongly convicted or charged, poor people denied effective representation and others whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial misconduct.

Stevenson’s arguments have convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that juveniles in nonhomicide cases may not be sentenced to life without parole. He is creating a memorial in Montgomery, Ala., to commemorate the more than 4,000 persons who were lynched in 12 southern states between 1871 and 1950.

The Wallenberg Medal and Lecture program honors a humanitarian who reflects the legacy of Raoul Wallenberg, a native of Sweden who graduated from the U-M College of Architecture in 1935.

The event is free and open to the public. It will be livestreamed at umich.edu/watch.

PLACE: Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor

INFORMATION: wallenberg.umich.edu