2022 OPL Fundraiser Featured Author, Advocate Bryan Stevenson

With a crowd topping more than 400 guests, the Omaha Public Library Foundation welcomed Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson to Omaha on September 28 for its annual fundraiser.

Held at Creighton University’s Harper Center, inside the Hixson-Lied Auditorium, Between the Lines with Bryan Stevenson celebrated Omaha Public Library, the Omaha Public Library Foundation, and raised needed dollars for library programming, collections, and more.

Jo Giles, Omaha Public Library Foundation board member and past president, served as the night’s emcee.

The evening also recognized Carol Wang, a former Omaha Public Library Board of Trustees president, with the 2022 Barbara Bock-Mavis Leadership Award. The annual award recognizes longtime service from an Omaha Public Library Foundation volunteer. Previous honorees include Barbara Bock-Mavis (2017), Jim Kineen (2018), Eileen Wirth (2019), Freddie Gray (2020), and Dick Kelley (2021).

Now in its ninth year, the Between the Lines fundraiser brings a celebrated author to Omaha. Dollars raised support Omaha Public Library. Previous authors include Margaret Atwood (2014), Wally Lamb (2015), Tobias Wolff (2016), Hope Jahren (2017), Amy Thielen (2018), Angie Thomas (2019), Elaine Weiss (2020), and Yaa Gyasi (2021).

The Omaha Public Library Foundation is grateful for the support of this year’s event sponsors.

Gold
Cox
Susan and Mike Lebens
Annette and Paul Smith

Silver
Deloitte
HDR
Heider Family Foundation
Tina and Dan Lonergan
Tenaska

Bronze
Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture
Berry Law Firm
Cline Williams
Heritage Omaha
Tulani and Othello Meadows
Omaha Steaks
West O Fitness

Friends of OPLF
Great Plains Communications
GreenSlate Development
Margaret Sullivan Studio
Morey & Quinn Wealth Partners
OPPD

About Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI 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 argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger.

He led the creation of two highly acclaimed cultural sites which opened in 2018: the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias. Visit https://eji.org to learn more.