The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County invites the public to celebrate the first Mary S. Stern lecture, made possible through an endowment to The Library Foundation of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. The inaugural speaker for the lecture series is Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., and author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.
“We are thrilled to announce Bryan Stevenson as the first speaker in the Mary S. Stern Lecture Series. His work and advocacy is fundamental to how my mom viewed the world,” said Dr. Peter Stern, chair of the Mary S. Stern Lecture Committee and Library Foundation board member.
An Evening with Bryan Stevenson takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 8, in Procter & Gamble Hall at the Aronoff Center for the Arts. Tickets for the lecture are $5 and will go on sale later this summer.
ABOUT BRYAN STEVENSON
Stevenson is a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned. His work fighting fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize. Stevenson has received 29 honorary doctoral degrees including degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller Just Mercy, which was has been awarded several honors including the Carnegie Medal by the American Library Association for the best nonfiction book of 2014 and a 2015 NAACP Image Award. For more information on this speaker, visit www.prhspeakers.org.
ABOUT THE MARY S. STERN LECTURE
The late Mary S. Stern endowed an annual lecture series for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County through The Library Foundation to support bringing internationally renowned thought leaders to our community. The Stern Lecture selection committee (Sandy and Peter Stern, Betsy and Paul Sittenfeld, and Vicky and Rick Reynolds) was formed in 2018 to select and invite lecturers who can honor Stern’s legacy by advancing the Library’s mission to connect our community with a world of ideas and information. The committee is committed to making the topic and speaker accessible to the community physically and financially.
