General Sessions

Entry to General Sessions is included in full-conference registration or with an Exhibits-Plus badge. Single-day registration includes entry to the General Session on that day only. All times are Central Daylight Saving Time.

Opening Session with Bryan Stevenson

Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 8:30 AM–10:00 AM

Bryan Stevenson is one of the most inspiring voices in the fight for justice today.

As the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery, Alabama, he has dedicated his career to challenging inequality, overturning wrongful convictions, and protecting the most vulnerable in the criminal justice system. He has argued and won landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the historic ruling that banned mandatory life sentences without parole for children.

Stevenson is also the visionary behind EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites—the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park—which powerfully trace the history of slavery, lynching, and mass incarceration in America.

A MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and recipient of the National Humanities Medal, Stevenson’s influence spans law, culture, and conscience. His bestselling memoir Just Mercy—adapted into an acclaimed feature film starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx—has inspired millions around the world. He is also the subject of the Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary True Justice.

Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row.

PLA thanks OCLC for its exclusive support of the Opening Session.

OCLC is a platinum-level sponsor of the PLA 2026 Conference.

Big Ideas with Dr. Ruha Benjamin

Thursday, April 2, 2026, 8:00 AM–9:00 AM

Start Thursday morning off right with Big Ideas!

Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, author of the award-winning book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019) and Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), the 2023 winner of the Stowe Prize, among many other publications. In 2024, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship.

Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, health and justice, knowledge and power. She recently released her fourth book, Imagination: A Manifesto. At the center of all Dr. Benjamin’s work is the invitation to “imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within.”

PLA thanks The John A. Hartford Foundation for its exclusive support of the Big Ideas Session.

The John A. Hartford Foundation is a silver-level sponsor of the PLA 2026 Conference.

Closing Session with Chef Sean Sherman

Friday, April 3, 2026, 3:30 PM–4:30 PM

A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, Chef Sean Sherman was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

His focus is on the revitalization and evolution of Indigenous foods systems throughout North America. Through his activism and advocacy, Sean is helping to reclaim and celebrate the rich culinary heritage of Indigenous communities around the world.

Sean has dedicated his career to supporting and promoting Indigenous food systems and Native food sovereignty.

His goal is to make Indigenous foods more accessible to as many communities as possible through the non-profit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS) and its Indigenous Food Lab, a professional Indigenous kitchen and training center. Working to address the economic and health crises affecting Native communities by re-establishing Native foodways, NĀTIFS imagines a new North American food system that generates wealth and improves health in Native communities through food-related enterprises.

In 2017, Sean published his first book with author Beth Dooley, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, which received the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook in 2018. In 2021, Sean opened Minnesota’s first full service Indigenous restaurant, Owamni by The Sioux Chef, which received the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in America for 2022.

In late 2025, Sean released his second book with authors Kate Nelson and Kristin Donnelly, Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America.