Anthony Ray Hinton and the other death row inmates experience immense physical and mental suffering in Alabama’s Holman State Prison. The inmates, who lose years of their lives in prison, frequently feel isolated and tormented as they dread their imminent executions and endure abuse from the guards. In the midst of this loneliness and suffering, Ray recognizes the value of community both within and outside of the prison. Ray relies on people in his life—like his mom and best friend Lester, a team of lawyers working to appeal his case, and even his fellow inmates—to provide him with emotional support as he serves a decades-long prison sentence for crimes he didn’t commit. With each of these groups, Ray highlights how close relationships and supportive communities can provide much-needed empathy and comfort in difficult times.
While many of Ray’s family and friends abandon him, his best friend, Lester, and his mother lift his spirits as they support him no matter what. When Ray is going through his trial, he doesn’t receive much support from his nine brothers and sisters, but his mom and Lester support him through the trial even when others believe he committed the murders. Ray writes, “The fact that these two people never doubted me for a second—well, let’s just say I hung on to that like my life depended on it.” Their support sustains him through his trial and provides him with critical comfort. After Ray’s conviction, Ray’s mom, Lester, and Lester’s mom (Phoebe) visit him every week, without fail, for family visitation days. Ray explains that “the three of them were the only bit of light in the darkness,” reinforcing how they provide a reassuring presence that mitigates the suffering of the jail.
Over the years, Ray’s team of lawyers also becomes a kind of community for him, and he feels most assured when his lawyers believe in him and empathize with his horrific situation. Ray’s wants to trust and have faith in his initial court-appointed lawyer, Sheldon Perhacs—but Perhacs is relatively indifferent to the fact that he holds Ray’s life in his hands. He seems to believe that Ray actually committed the crimes he’s been accused of, and at one point, he asks Ray to have his mother mortgage her house to pay him $15,000. His lack of empathy for Ray’s financial and emotional situation only compounds Ray’s feelings of mistreatment at being on trial for crimes he didn’t commit. After Ray fires Perhacs, another lawyer named Santha Sonenberg arrives to represent him from the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to providing legal representation to those who have been denied a fair trial. When Ray tells Santha that he is innocent, she says that she believes him, asks how he is doing, and informs him that he cannot be executed while his court appeal process is still going on—something he didn’t know. Hearing this, Ray tears up in gratitude; these simple expressions of compassion and understanding mean a world of difference to his emotional state. Later, when Bryan Stevenson (the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative) takes over Ray’s case, he works tirelessly to make sure that Ray can get out of prison. Ray writes, “Bryan cared about me so much that it moved me in a way that was beyond words.” When Ray’s conviction is reversed, he wonders how he could possibly thank Bryan: “He had been by my side for fifteen years and behind the scenes for longer than that.” Bryan’s support—and the community of lawyers that Bryan brings with him—literally give Ray the rest of his life back.
But Ray’s fellow inmates are perhaps his most supportive community, because they are able to truly empathize with one another’s situations and support one another through their most trying times. After Ray’s first three years, during which he barely talks to other inmates, he realizes the value of extending empathy to others. He thinks, “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.” Ray does this by comforting another inmate (who’s crying over his mother’s death) when no one else does; the other men express their sympathy soon after. Even though each of them is dealing with their own sorrow, Ray’s gesture initiates an environment of mutual support upon which others can build. From that point on, Ray begins to speak with other men in the prison about their convictions, gaining legal advice and having deep discussions about politics and relationships. Ray recognizes that “sometimes you have to make family where you find family, or you die in isolation.” Connecting with the other men makes Ray feel as though he has gained the emotional support that a family might normally provide. Ray also notes that the inmates’ support is most crucial when they know someone is being executed. When Ray’s friend Henry goes to the electric chair—just down the hall—Ray and the other inmates bang on the bars and shout so that Henry can hear them as he dies. Ray writes, “I wanted Henry to hear me. I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone.” The inmates share Henry’s acute fear of death and try to show their support in his final hour of need. Ray feels community in the prison most viscerally when his own mother dies: just as he had done for others, the men pass what little food they have in a chain to Ray’s cell and shout words of sympathy. He thinks, “Sorrow shared is sorrow lessened.” In Ray’s deepest moments of despair and suffering, having a community is crucial to easing that pain.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Suffering, Community, and Support ThemeTracker
Suffering, Community, and Support Quotes in The Sun Does Shine
“Would it make a difference if I told you I was innocent?”
“Listen, all y’all always doing something and saying you’re innocent.”
I dropped my hand. So that’s how it was going to be. I was pretty sure that when he said “all y’all,” he wasn’t talking about ex-cons or former coal miners or Geminis or even those accused of capital murder.
I needed him, so I had no choice but to let it slide. I had to believe that he believed me.
“I’ve been reading the papers. You see that there’s been other holdups? Other managers getting robbed at closing? I definitely can’t be doing that when I’m locked in here.”
“Yeah, I’ll look into it. They’re only paying me $1,000 for this, and hell, I eat $1,000 for breakfast.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
I didn’t know Michael Lindsey, but I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. I wanted him to know that I saw him and knew him and his life meant something and so did his death. We yelled until the lights stopped flickering and the generator that powered the electric chair turned off. I banged on the bars until the smell of Michael Lindsey’s death reached me, and then I got in my bunk and I pulled the blanket over my head and I wept. I cried for a man who had to die alone, and I cried for whoever was next to die.
I wondered why it is that the cries of another human being—whether it’s a baby or a woman in grief or a man in pain—can touch us in ways we don’t expect. I wasn’t expecting to have my heart break that night. I wasn’t expecting to end three years of silence. It was a revelation to realize that I wasn’t the only man on death row. 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.
It was silent for a few moments, and then the most amazing thing happened. On a dark night, in what must surely be the most desolate and dehumanizing place on earth, a man laughed. A real laugh. And with that laughter, I realized that the State of Alabama could steal my future and my freedom, but they couldn’t steal my soul or my humanity. And they most certainly couldn’t steal my sense of humor. I missed my family. I missed Lester. But sometimes you have to make family where you find family, or you die in isolation. I wasn’t ready to die. I wasn’t going to make it that easy on them. I was going to find another way to do my time. Whatever time I had left.
Everything, I realized, is a choice.
And spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.
We weren’t a collection of innocent victims. Many of the guys I laughed with had raped women and murdered children and sliced innocent people up for the fun of it or because they were high on drugs or desperate for money and never thought beyond the next moment. The outside world called them monsters. They called all of us monsters. But I didn’t know any monsters on the row. I knew guys named Larry and Henry and Victor and Jesse. I knew Vernon and Willie and Jimmy. Not monsters. Guys with names who didn’t have mothers who loved them or anyone who had ever shown them a kindness that was even close to love. Guys who were born broken or had been broken by life. Guys who had been abused as children and had their minds and their hearts warped by cruelty and violence and isolation long before they ever stood in front of a judge and a jury.
Compassion doesn’t know what color you are, and I think Henry felt more love from the black men on death row than he ever did at a KKK meeting or from his own father and mother.
We had met a few more times in book club and had read Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. All the books talked about race in the South, and Henry at first had shied away from the subject, almost pretending not to know how unfairly blacks were treated until we called him out on it. He was ashamed of how he had been brought up and ashamed of the beliefs that had brought him to the row. “You never knew what a person could grow up to become,” he’d say.
Some days, I could see he was tired, and I wondered about the wear on a person when so many lives depend on what you do each day. He carried a big burden, and it wasn’t just mine. He spoke of justice and of mercy and of a system that was so broken it locked up children and the mentally ill and the innocent. “No one is beyond redemption,” he would say. No one is undeserving of their own life or their own potential to change. He had such compassion for victims and for perpetrators, and an intolerance and even anger for those in power who abused that power.
This isn’t your time to die, son. It’s not. You have work to do. You have to prove to them that my baby is no killer. You have to show them. You are a beacon. You are the light. Don’t you listen to that fool devil telling you to give up. I didn’t raise no child of mine to give up when things get tough. Your life isn’t your life to take. It belongs to God. You have work to do. Hard work. I’m going to talk at you all night long if I have to and all day and all night again, and I will never stop until you know who you are. You were not born to die in this cell. God has a purpose for you. He has a purpose for all of us. I’ve served my purpose.
I felt a flash of fear, and then I thought about the guys on the row. They would be watching the news. They would be seeing my release. […]
I closed my eyes, and I lifted my face to the sky. I said a prayer for my mama. I thanked God. I opened my eyes, and I looked at the cameras. There had been so much darkness for so long. So many dark days and dark nights. But no more. I had lived in a place where the sun refused to shine. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“The sun does shine,” I said, and then I looked at both Lester and Bryan—two men who had saved me—each in their own way. “The sun does shine,” I said again.
And then the tears began to fall.
