Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sun Does Shine, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Discrimination and the Criminal Justice System
Optimism, Faith, and Choice
The Death Penalty
Suffering, Community, and Support
The Power of Stories
Summary
Analysis
The book jumps back to May 1974, when Ray is a senior in high school. He’s playing in a baseball game against a predominantly white team, and he is up to bat. When the pitcher throws a clear ball, the umpire calls a strike, and the catcher laughs at the clear bias. Ray thinks that it’s been this way since the schools integrated a few years earlier: people mutter racial slurs all the time when the Black students are around. Ray’s mom warned him always to follow the rules and keep calm, and not to get involved with white girls.
In flashing back to Ray’s high school baseball game, the book demonstrates how racism has always had a presence in Ray’s life. In high school, he was always treated differently because of his race, suggesting that the discrimination in the criminal justice system is simply an extension of the racism that exists in the United States more broadly. Like the courts, the umpire simply manipulates existing rules to try to cheat Ray out of winning.
Themes
There’s a rumor going around that there are college scouts at the game. Ray knows he’s one of the top 10 baseball players in Alabama, but nobody in his family has gone to college. He’s the youngest of 10 kids, all of whom left Alabama after graduating high school. Many went to Cleveland, Ohio, where they wouldn’t have to deal with Black churches or neighborhoods being bombed as they did in Birmingham, Alabama.
The racism in Alabama is so prevalent—and even overtly violent—that Ray’s siblings have all decided to flee the state rather than hope things will get better back home.
Themes
Everyone who lives in Ray’s town of Praco works in the coal mines or for the mining company in some way. Ray’s father worked in the coal mines until he suffered a head injury and had to live in an institution for the rest of his life, leaving Ray’s mom to raise Ray alone. Ray’s family is close, and the community is close as well, like an extension of a family.
Ray illustrates how important community is to him—not only his mother, who raised him essentially by herself—but also the broader community around him, which looks out for each other.
Themes
At the baseball game, Ray’s mom cheers Ray on. He smiles at her support. He thinks that he’d like to go to college, but he wouldn’t be able to do so unless he got a free ride, transportation, and someone else to look after his mother. The pitcher begins his wind-up again. Ray thinks that growing up playing street ball, if the pitch was anywhere close, he had to swing at it—he made the best of the pitch he was given. The pitcher throws, and it’s a wild ball that grazes Ray’s cheekbone. The umpire calls a ball as the catcher laughs again.
Ray’s thoughts about college illustrate how poor students face higher economic barriers to attending, and how this doesn’t just apply to tuition. Besides having no money for tuition, Ray also has a lot of other economic barriers keeping him from college, like not having a car to get there or needing to help his mom at home. Additionally, Ray’s assertion that he has to swing at the pitch he’s given is an apt metaphor for his optimism in life: that he can choose to try his best even when faced with a bad situation.
Themes
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On the next pitch, Ray sends the ball soaring. He slows down as he runs the bases, appreciating the fact that there are a bunch of white people cheering for him. He remembers once in a basketball game, the opposing crows started cheering “Hinton! Hinton! Hinton!” But when Ray sat down, he realized they were actually shouting racial slurs. Over the next few innings, Ray hits a triple and another home run; his team wins 7-2. It turns out there was a scout at the game, but he doesn’t talk to Ray.
Ray again emphasizes the discrimination that he faces nearly every day at school. He faces overt racism, like white people yelling racial slurs at the basketball game, but he also experiences more subtle forms of racism, too. This passage shows an instance of subtler discrimination that has broad consequences: the scout doesn’t try to talk to Ray despite the fact that he is instrumental in winning the game and one of the top baseball players in the state. And since Ray knows he needs a scholarship to attend college, being overlooked like this doesn’t bode well for his future.
Themes
Ray and Lester start to walk home together. When a car approaches that they don’t recognize, they jump in a ditch off the side of the road to avoid trouble. Ray wishes he had a car so that he doesn’t have to sit in the dirt every time he walks home. Ray looks at the sky, knowing that he could be angry at his situation, but instead, he chooses to be optimistic: he knows his mom is waiting for him at home, he just played a great baseball game, and he still has his best friend.
Having to jump into a ditch as he walks home is another aspect of the discrimination that Ray faces: because he is a young, poor Black man in the South, he’s extremely vulnerable and thus can be attacked at any moment. Still, as Ray looks at the sky, he maintains his optimistic outlook on life and is grateful for the things that he does have.
Themes
Still, Ray is afraid: he wants to protect his family and his friends from fear. He knows the Alabama soil is full of sweat, blood, and tears of guys who were forced to the ground because of the color of their skin. After another car passes, Ray and Lester resume their trek home.
Ray’s musings recall the enduring legacy of slavery in Alabama and the United States more broadly, and how, while progress has been made, he, his friends, and his family still face discrimination in 1974 that’s born of slavery’s legacy.
Themes
