Acclaimed public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson will speak on his best-selling book, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Spiegel & Grau/Random House Penguin, 2014), on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in Conte Forum. Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., which has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Just Mercy, about Stevenson and his work with the EJI, was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Esquire, and Time and winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction. Stevenson has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Prize and the National Medal of Liberty from the American Civil Liberties Union. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series. Co-sponsors: Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics and Boston College PULSE: Celebrating 50 Years of Service.