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| Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to Award Acclaimed Legal Human and Civil Rights Advocate Bryan Stevenson with Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award |
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| Local News Headlines |
| Written by Administrator |
| Thursday, 09 August 2012 09:36 |
 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) will present its highest honor, the Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, to noted Civil Rights Attorney and Equal Justice Initiative (EIJ) Founder Bryan Stevenson during BCRI’s twentieth anniversary celebration on Saturday, November 3. The annual award recognizes individuals for their service to civil and human rights causes around the world. The awards dinner, which is presented by BB&T, will take place in the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel Ballroom. A 6 p.m. reception precedes the 7 p.m. dinner. For ticket and sponsorship information, call 328-9696 x 236. “We are pleased to pay tribute to Fred L. Shuttlesworth by honoring Bryan Stevenson, one of the nation’s leading legal civil and human rights advocates,” stated BCRI President and CEO Dr. Lawrence J. Pijeaux, Jr. “Bryan has brought the systemic discrimination against racial minorities to public attention and, through skilled, creative advocacy, he has been an effective voice for those routinely denied equal treatment by the justice system.” Stevenson has represented capital defendants and death row prisoners in the Deep South since 1985 when he was a staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 1989, he has been the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit organization that he founded that defends the legal rights of the poor and people of color. A 1985 graduate of Harvard, Stevenson holds both a master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a J.D. from the School of Law. Stevenson joined the clinical faculty at New York University School of Law in 1998. Stevenson’s work on behalf of condemned prisoners has won him national acclaim. He is a 1989 recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award, the 1991 ACLU National Medal of Liberty, a 1995 MacArthur Fellowship Award Prize and in 1996, the National Association of Public Interest Lawyers named him the Public Interest Lawyer of the Year. He has also received honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and Georgetown University Law School. Stevenson has served as a visiting professor of law at the University of Michigan School of Law and New York University School of Law, published several widely disseminated manuals on capital litigation, and written extensively on criminal justice, capital punishment, and civil rights issues. |
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