The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

Despair was a choice. Hatred was a choice. Anger was a choice. I still had choices, and that knowledge rocked me. I may not have had as many Lester had, but I still had some choices. I could choose to give up or to hang on. Hope was a choice. Faith was a choice. And more than anything else, love was a choice. Compassion was a choice.

It all matters. How we live matters. Do we choose love or do we choose hate? Do we help or do we harm? Because there is no way to know the exact second your life changes forever. You can only begin to know that moment by looking in the rearview mirror. And trust me when I tell you when you never, ever see it coming.

Every single one wants to matter. We want our lives, and our stories and the choices we made or didn’t make to matter.

We need to think about the fact that we are all more than the worst thing we have done.

I was born with the same gift from God we are all born with – the impulse to reach out and lessen the suffering of another human being. It was a gift, and we each had a choice whether to use this gift or not.

Everything, I realized, is a choice. And spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.

He was a poor man in a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.

Remember none of us are the worst thing we have done, and right now, wherever you are, whoever you are, you can reach out to your fellow man or woman and bring your own light to the dark places.

No baby is born a murderer. No toddler dreams of being on death row someday. Every killer on death row was taught to be a killer—by parents, by a system, by the brutality of another brutalized person—but no one was born a killer.

...the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but justice needs help. Justice only happens when good people take a stand against injustice. The moral arc of the universe needs people to support it as it bends. And yes, it also needs people to pick a side.

We have to make every ending be a happy ending.

We need to understand the dangers posed by the politics of fear and anger that create systems like our capital punishment system and the political dynamics that have made some courts and officials act so irresponsibly. We also need to learn about human dignity, about human worth and value. We need to think about the fact that we are all more than the worst thing we have done.

Martin Luther King once said, “A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

...Pain and tragedy and injustice happen - they happen to us all. I'd like to believe it's what you choose to do after such an experience that matters the most - that truly changes your life forever.

You going to have people dislike you because of whatever reason they find to dislike you. That’s just how the world is. But you have to be knowing that you are responsible for how you treat others, you’re not responsible for how they treat you. Do you understand? I don’t care what people say about you—you don’t drop down to their level. You always treat someone better than what they treat you. Always.

There’s no sadder place to be in this world than a place where there’s no hope.

No one can understand what freedom means until they don’t have it.

sometimes life is so damn heavy the only choice is to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

Sometimes it felt like life was more a process of elimination than a series of choices.

I chose to forgive. I chose to stay vigilant to any signs of anger or hate in my heart. They took thiry years of my life. If I couldn't forgive, if I couldn't feel joy, that would be like giving them the rest of my life. The rest of my life is mine. Alabama took thirty years. That was enough.

I forgive because that’s how my mother raised me. I forgive because I have a God who forgives. It’s hard not to wrap your life in a story—a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story that has logic and purpose and a bigger reason for why things turned out the way they did. I look for purpose in losing thirty years of my life. I try to make meaning out of something so wrong and so senseless. We all do. We have to find ways to recover after bad things happen. We have to make every ending be a happy ending. Every single one of us wants to matter. We want our lives and our stories and the choices we made or didn’t make to matter.

Innocent men don’t run. Except sometimes innocent men need to run. This is true in Alabama and everywhere. If you’re poor and black, sometimes your best and only chance is to run.

I was afraid every single day on death row. And I also found a way to find joy every single day. I learned that fear and joy are both a choice.

We weren’t monsters; we were guys trying to survive the best we could.

Looking up at that sky, I knew I could get angry or I could have some faith. It was always a choice.

You need to hold on to your hope. If you have hope, you have everything.

On April 3, 2015, Anthony Ray Hinton was released from prison after spending nearly thirty years in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row.

A little bit of kindness was amplified on death row, because it was so unexpected. You can scream out in a crowd of voices also screaming out, and no one hears you - but when you yell into the silence, your voice sounds louder. I was going to be that kind voice screaming out on the row, and I was going to make it better for everyone. We were all the same here. We were all discarded like garbage and deemed unworthy to have a life. I was going to prove them wrong.