After decades of fighting racial injustice and helping to open the first lynching memorial in the United States, Sussex County native Bryan Stevenson is the central figure in an upcoming HBO documentary.

"True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality" chronicles the civil rights attorney's advocacy work in Alabama and shows his life growing up in Georgetown.

The documentary debuts Wednesday, June 26 at 8 p.m. on HBO.

“I’m grateful to HBO and Kunhardt Films for their interest in our work,” Bryan Stevenson said in a statement. “We have ignored our nation’s history of racial inequality and the unfairness of our criminal justice for far too long."

Stevenson is filmed driving through Georgetown, passing by the location of the segregated school he attended as a child, now a basketball court.

Executive producer Trey Ellis said he and Peter Kunhardt, a six-time Emmy winner who directed and executive produced the film, first saw Stevenson giving a speech at a foundation gala.

"Hearing him in person is like hearing Lincoln speaking," Ellis said. "He's one of the great orators of our time."

They asked if they could spotlight the history of Stevenson's work in a documentary.

"We were so blown away, so we kept pestering him," Ellis said. "We were really honored he chose us."

The documentary unveils Stevenson's experience with the criminal justice system, which he says “treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent."

Most of "True Justice" takes place in Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement and home to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit Stevenson founded that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, can't afford legal representation and/or were denied a fair trial.

Watch the trailer:

Through its research, the Equal Justice Initiative connects slavery, lynching and racism to mass incarceration. According to the nonprofit, certain states where lynchings declined "relied heavily on the increased use of capital punishment" through court order.

The United States never had an official memorial dedicated to the countless American citizens who were murdered in racial terror lynchings, Stevenson said.

That was until the Equal Justice Initiative released a groundbreaking report documenting over 4,000 lynchings in 12 states. The total is “at least” 800 more lynchings in the states than had been previously reported, the study reads.

Read the EJI report: Lynching in America: Confronting the legacy of racial terror

In its report, the Equal Justice Initiative documented terror lynchings on Delmarva, including Accomack, Virginia Beach, Wicomico and Somerset counties, noting that these acts of racial violence were especially prevalent in Maryland and Virginia.

The National Museum for Peace and Justice subsequently opened in Montgomery in April 2018 and is also shown in the film. It contains a monument for every county in America where a lynching took place.

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Much like the Apartheid Museum in South Africa and the Holocaust Museum in Berlin, Stevenson said he believes the United States won't recover from its past without recognition, truth and reconciliation.

"We can't get reconciliation without dealing with the truth," Ellis said. "This country has never come to grips with its past. It doesn't mean we're bad people. It's not an indictment of the country. It's historical fact."

Alabama is where Stevenson became a staunch advocate for the poor and the incarcerated.

There, he saw firsthand how courts unfairly administered the death penalty based on race, with the Supreme Court stating that racial bias was "inevitable" when applying capital punishment.

"I think you see the price (Stevenson) pays personally for dedicating his life to fighting for the voiceless," Ellis said of the film.

In the documentary, Stevenson says there is a cultural need to remember the racial violence that shaped American history.

"I am persuaded that if we commit to challenging racial injustice, poverty and abuse of power, we can achieve a more just society," Stevenson said in a statement. "I hope films like this can contribute to that goal."