BRYAN STEVENSON

Founder and executive director, Equal Justice Initiative; author of the memoir Just Mercy and executive producer of the film adaptation, in theaters December 25

I’M STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF PEOPLE WHO DID SO MUCH MORE WITH SO MUCH LESS.”

Most of my day is consumed with meetings.

I try to insist that there are a couple of hours reserved to [work on] advancing our agenda— like challenging mandatory sentencing of people with severe disabilities, or changing the way people talk and think about race. We have to protect time to advance those projects.

We’ve got more than a hundred active death penalty cases, and probably a couple hundred cases involving children sentenced to extreme punishment or life without parole. And we have what we call impact cases, where we’re trying to use a case with a particular narrative that, if we succeed, could help hundreds or thousands of others. We have some class action work where we’re challenging conditions of confinement at a state prison. I think it helps to live and work in Montgomery, Alabama, where you are surrounded by this rich history and the legacy of struggle that has made it possible for us to do what we do. I think about the people who, 60 years ago, were doing what I’m trying to do, and how they frequently had to say, “My head is bloody but not bowed.” I’ve never had to say that. I’m constantly mindful of the fact that I’m standing on the shoulders of people who did so much more with so much less. It doesn’t mean that you don’t get overwhelmed. It doesn’t mean that you don’t sometimes feel really distraught, or that you don’t lose sleep.