Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson is the subject of a new HBO documentary airing this Wednesday.
“True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality” premieres at 7 p.m. CST on HBO and is available for streaming.
Six-time Emmy-winner Peter Kunhardt executive produces and directs and long Emmy-winners Teddy Kunhardt and George Kunhardt.
The film deals with Stevenson’s career as a death row lawyer and advocate for racial reconciliation through a better understanding of the past. It also delves into how American history impacts the present, with issues such as racism, incarceration, the death penalty and others.
In an interview with The Huffington Post, Stevenson said he is not interested in punishment, but liberation.
“I think it’s that we are not free from the legacy of slavery and racial injustice,” he said. "And that we have to address the problems that our history creates. For me, you can’t understand a lot of contemporary issues ― like police violence or mass incarceration or the death penalty or excessive punishment, or even racial discrimination or immigration ― without a broader historical context.
“And I just don’t think we’ve done a very good job in this country of talking about or reckoning with our very problematic history that begins with Native genocide, slavery. … When we try to solve these contemporary problems without that historical narrative, we fall short," he said.
The author of the acclaimed book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
Last year, the EJI’s Legacy Museum and its National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery. It is the country’s only lynching memorial, dedicated to the memory of more than 4,400 black victims of lynching. EJI is also working with communities to recognize lynching victims by collecting soil from lynching sites and erecting historical markers.