Last week, February 10–13, the National Association of Episcopal Schools presented the Episcopal Identity: Equity & Justice Conference in Montgomery, Alabama. Approximately 220 Episcopal educators from across the country—representing over sixty schools, twenty-two states, and thirty-one dioceses—gathered for four days of reflection, learning, and fellowship exploring Episcopal identity through the lens of Micah 6:8—“and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
A central element of the conference was a day spent at the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and Legacy Sites: the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Through exhibits, interactive media, music, and art, the Legacy Museum traces the story of slavery in America from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to the Jim Crow era and lynchings, and to the mass incarceration of today.
Keynote speaker Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery in 1989. EJI is a nonprofit human rights organization that provides legal representation to those who have been wrongfully convicted, unfairly sentenced, or who have suffered abuse in jail or prison. EJI also opposes the death penalty and provides re-entry assistance to formerly-incarcerated people.
Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting prisoners suffering from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling banning mandatory life sentences without parole for children seventeen or younger. Stevenson and his team have also secured release or relief for over 140 wrongly convicted death row prisoners, and won relief for hundreds of others who have been wrongfully convicted or unfairly sentenced.
Other conference highlights include a plenary session with Tad Roach, EJI’s Learning and Engagement Specialist, and Sia Sanneh, a Senior Attorney at EJI. Both speakers have strong connections to Episcopal schools—Roach joined the staff of EJI in 2022 after twenty-four years as Head of School at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Delaware, and Sanneh is a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.
The Episcopal Identity: Equity & Justice Conference also featured twenty workshops led by conference attendees and members of the conference planning committee. Topics spanned the gamut of Episcopal identity and Equity & Justice, including interreligious and ecumenical school communities, courageous leadership, disability and neurodiversity, and governing board culture.
The conference closed with a celebration of Holy Eucharist, featuring a powerful sermon from the Rev. Trey Davis, lower school chaplain at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School in Atlanta, GA, closing remarks from NAES executive director, the Rev. David A. Madison, D.Min., and a blessing from the Rt. Rev. John H. Taylor, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.
Following the conference, a number of participants also visited the Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Institute. The Johnson Institute partners with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama at the Frank M. Johnson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Montgomery, a National Historic Landmark and stop on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. Judge Johnson presided there from 1955 to 1979, and the historic courtroom—often called “an oasis of justice”—became a pivotal setting for landmark civil rights rulings.
The Episcopal Identity: Equity & Justice Conference marked an important step in the National Association of Episcopal Schools’ mission to deepen and strengthen Episcopal identity in schools while advancing meaningful conversations about equity, justice, and moral leadership across its national network. NAES is grateful to Bryan Stevenson, EJI, the Renaissance Montgomery and all its staff, all workshop speakers and presenters, and the conference planning committee for their hard work in bringing this conference to fruition. NAES looks forward to welcoming attendees to the next Biennial Conference to be held in Los Angeles (November 18–20, 2026).
