Bryan Stevenson

2017 WINNER

Just Mercy

2017 Stowe Prize Winner, Bryan Stevenson for Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. He has won reversals, relief, or release for over 115 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row, 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 also received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.

Under his leadership, the Equal Justice Initiative has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Stevenson has successfully argued several cases in the United States Supreme Court, including an historic ruling that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional.

Stevenson has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge the legacy of racial inequality in America, including major projects to educate communities about slavery, lynching and racial segregation. He is also a Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law.

About Just Mercy

Just Mercy is a powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem, and a clarion call to fix a broken system of justice from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a civil rights law practice dedicated to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. One of his first cases was Walter McMillian, a man convicted and sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman in Monroeville, Alabama, despite the state’s lack of tangible evidence. The case drew Stevenson into a tangle of conspiracy, political machinations, and legal brinksmanship, and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice.

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of justice.

School Group Interest Form

School Group Interest Form 2024

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

School name:

Please suggest three dates and times when your group would like to visit. (Note: the Stowe Center is closed on Sunday and Tuesday.)

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The Stowe Center requires one adult per every 10 students.

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Do you plan to have lunch on site?

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No, thank you.

Are you interested in scheduling a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

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If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

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Adult Group Interest Form

Group Tour Interest Form 2022

Thank you so much for your interest in a group tour at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center! Please help us schedule your visit by answering the questions below.

Group Name:

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What date would you like to visit? (The Stowe Center typically books group tours for Thursday through Sunday visits.)

Expected number of visitors:(Required)

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Please indicate the number of adults, seniors, and children expected in your group:

Are there special accommodations that can help us serve you best?

Are you interested in a joint visit with our neighbor, The Mark Twain House and Museum?

Yes, please.

No, thank you.

If yes, have you already contacted The Mark Twain House?

Yes

Isabella Beecher Hooker

Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker (1822-1907)
An ardent member of the woman’s suffrage movement, Isabella Holmes Beecher Hooker joined in the cause along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Isabella was the first child of Lyman Beecher and his second wife, Harriet Porter Beecher.

Isabella began her education at Catharine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary and lived with her sister Mary Perkins. In 1841 she married John Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. John Hooker was a lawyer and an abolitionist.

In the early 1860s Isabella got involved in the woman’s suffrage movement. Isabella joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in 1869. She was a founding member of the Connecticut Woman’s Suffrage Association. Isabella’s ideas of equality were influenced by John Stuart Mills’ On Liberty and the Subjection of Women.

In 1871, Isabella organized the annual convention of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association in Washington D.C. and presented her argument before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Her husband, John Hooker, believed in his wife and supported her activities. He helped Isabella draft a bill to the Connecticut Legislature giving married women the same property rights as their husbands. The bill passed in 1877. Isabella annually submitted a bill granting women the right to vote, but it did not pass in her lifetime.