Equal Justice Initiative

The EJI primarily advocates and acts in four areas: criminal justice reform, racial justice, anti-poverty, and public education resources. Examples of the group’s activity include advocating for an end to capital punishment, operating medical clinics intended to offer assistance for previously imprisoned individuals, and offering legal aid to individuals, such as those facing the death penalty or court-imposed fines and fees. The group also publishes materials and maintains sites focused on racial injustices in the history of the United States, such as slavery and the Jim Crow era.  ^{3  4  5  6}

Organization

The Equal Justice Initiative is an education and legal advocacy nonprofit based in Alabama. The group operates medical clinics that offer assistance for previously imprisoned individuals and offers legal aid to individuals, such as those facing the death penalty. The group also publishes materials and maintains sites focused on racial injustices in the history of the United States, such as slavery and the Jim Crow era.  ^{3  4  5  6}

Founded in 1994 when the Southern Center for Human Rights lost federal funding, the EJI was designed to provide legal defense for death row prisoners.  ⁷

Since its inception, the EJI claims to have secured relief, release, or reduced sentences for over 135 death-row prisoners while securing U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have impacted thousands of other cases.  ¹

The EJI provides legal representation for death row prisoners, advocates for the elimination of the death penalty, opposes excessive punishment for children, provides a re-entry program for imprisoned children, challenges alleged wrongful convictions, opposes mandatory-minimum sentences and habitual-offender statutes, and has exposed dangerous prison conditions in Alabama.  ²

The group also operates four “Legacy Sites” located in Alabama: the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, and Montgomery Square. The group states that “excessive punishment, racial discrimination, and inequality” in the United States inspired the making of these sites, which include exhibits about slavery, the Jim Crow era, and what it calls the “mass incarceration crisis.”  ⁴

Activities

The Equal Justice Initiative primarily focuses its advocacy in four areas: criminal justice policy, racial advocacy, anti-poverty, and public education resources.  ⁸

Under its criminal justice program, the EJI seeks to abolish the death penalty and end the practice of placing youths in adult prisons for violent offences. Furthermore, the group claims that “[m]ass incarceration disproportionately impacts the poor and people of color and does not make us safer” and that “‘tough on crime’ policies that led to mass incarceration are rooted in the belief that Black and brown people are inherently guilty and dangerous.” The group also advocates for changes to the United States’ parole system, reforms to prison conditions, and reductions in punishments given for drug offences.  ⁵

Under its anti-poverty program, the EJI offers free health-care services in Alabama to individuals who have been in prison, including through clinics that the group has established. The EJI also provides assistance to individuals who incur court fines and fees. The group also works with groups such as Greater Birmingham Ministries, the West Alabama Food Bank, the Food Bank of East Alabama, Edmundite Missions, and the Helping Hands Food Ministry to provide food to low-income individuals.  ³

Under its public education program, the group produces documentaries, such as Just Mercy and True Justice. The EJI also publishes reports about perceived racial disparities and a “Racial Injustice Calendar.”  ⁶

Leadership

As of July 2026, Bryan Stevenson was the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Stevenson is an attorney and author of the book Just Mercy which inspired the film of the same name. As of July 2026, Stevenson was the Aronson Family Professor of Criminal Justice at the New York University School of Law.  ^{9 7}  

As of July 2026, Randy Susskind was the deputy director of the Equal Justice Initiative; he began working for the organization in 1994. He has also been an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law.  ¹⁰

As of July 2026, Kim Taylor-Thompson was the chair of the EJI. Taylor-Thompson is a professor emerita of Clinical Law at New York University (NYU) and previously served as the CEO of education-focused for-profit company Duke Corporate Education.    ^{11  12  10}

Funding

Known corporate contributors to the Equal Justice Initiative during the riots surrounding the police-custody death of George Floyd include Microsoft, which committed $250,000 to the EJI, as well as the Black Lives Matter Foundation, the Innocence Project, The Leadership Conference, the Minnesota Freedom Fund, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.  ¹³

Cosmetics company Glossier committed $500,000 to five groups, including the EJI.  ¹⁴

Cisco pledged that part of a $5 million donation will go to the EJI, Color of Change and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, while Etsy contributed $500,000.  ^{15  16}

Coca-Cola committed $2.5 million from the Coca Cola Foundation split among the EJI, the NAACP, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Electronic Arts pledged $1 million to groups that included the EJI. Honest Beauty, founded by Jessica Alba, pledged $100,000 to the EJI.  ¹⁷