![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190227_AnthonyRayHinton_RileyInstitute-268.jpg\")
Anthony Ray Hinton shakes hands with Furman Provost George Shields, his partner Coco Harris and his daughter Grace, Wednesday after his talk at McAlister Auditorium. Dozens of people lined up to get autographed copies of his book, \u201cThe\u00a0Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWe need to stop believing that we have the best judicial system in the world,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cPerhaps for some it\u2019s the best judicial system in the world, but when you are a person of color it\u2019s not the best judicial system in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The white police officers who arrested Hinton assured him he\u2019d be convicted whether or not he was guilty because of his race, Hinton said, and prosecutor Bob Gregory, who wrote in his own book he could tell Hinton was guilty and \u201cevil\u201d by the way he looked, had a documented history of racial bias.<\/p>\n
The Equal Justice Initiative, an organization committed to ending mass incarceration and challenging racial injustice in the United States, eventually took up Hinton\u2019s case. And after years of fighting, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction on the grounds that Hinton\u2019s trial lawyer did not provide adequate representation required by the U.S. Constitution. An Alabama judge dismissed the charges during the retrial after prosecutors admitted that their own ballistics tests couldn\u2019t match the bullets used in the murders to Hinton\u2019s mother\u2019s gun, which was the only physical evidence ever produced by the state.<\/p>\n
Hinton was released on April 3, 2015, 13 years after his mother had died and so cut off from the outside world that he thought the voice coming from a GPS was an actual person hidden somewhere in the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried like a baby,\u201d he said. \u201cI did my interviews, and my best friend (Lester Bailey, who visited him in prison weekly) asked where I wanted to go first. I said \u2018take me to where they laid my mother\u2019s body.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hinton admits he was consumed by bitterness and anger after his conviction, claiming he didn\u2019t speak to anyone for his first three years on death row and wondering why God had allowed this to happen. It took the weeping of a prisoner in the cell next door one night to allow Hinton to live again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked this man what was wrong, and he told me he had got word his mother had passed,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cAnd as I sat on my bunk I realized my mother was still alive and I had something to be thankful for.”<\/p>\n
He remembered looking in the mirror and seeing someone he wasn’t used to seeing.<\/p>\n
“I am person who believes in laughter,” he said. “I wasn\u2019t laughing anymore. I decided I would get my life back regardless of where it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hinton started a book club in death row while befriending 54 people who would eventually be executed during his time there. One was notorious Ku Klux Klan member Henry Francis Hays, who was waiting to be put to death for the lynching of Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black man, in 1981.<\/p>\n
Hays didn\u2019t tell Hinton who he was, and when Hinton finally found out the reaction wasn\u2019t what you might expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll his life he was taught hate, and I felt bad for him that this mother and father didn\u2019t love him enough to show him love,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cI thought, I have enough love given to me by my mom that I really believe I could give to the whole world. I just started talking to him and started trying to deprogram him to show him that I\u2019m no different than you are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two became friends, and, in his final moments before being was executed in 1997, Hinton says Hays thanked \u201cthe very people they taught me to hate.” That message of redemption, empathy and unity is a theme of Hinton\u2019s book and was the theme of his talk at Furman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought about writing a book \u2026 but after hearing so many people telling me to write it, I went to my attorney Bryan Stevenson (founder and executive director of EJI) and asked, \u2018How hard would it be for me to write a book?\u2019\u201d Hinton said. \u201cHe said, \u2018All you\u2019ve got to do is say you want to do it, and I\u2019ll help you.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t so much about me. The focus was to help others realize that there lies within all of us humanity and compassion. I wrote this book hoping it would change peoples’ hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hinton has been interviewed by national and international media outlets since his book was published in 2018, even appearing on \u201cCBS This Morning\u201d<\/a>with Oprah Winfrey when she announced it as her latest Oprah\u2019s Book Club selection. But the attention isn\u2019t what gives Hinton the most satisfaction.<\/p>\n Anthony Ray Hinton, left, poses with Jonathan Kubakundimana ’16 outside McAlister Auditorium before Hinton’s talk Wednesday.\u00a0Kubakundimana is a program assistant with the the Equal Justice Initiative, the organization that fought for years to get Hinton’s conviction overturned.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIt makes me feel good that people come up to me every day somewhere and say, \u2018Mr. Hinton, I just want to shake your hand and say thank you. That book is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It changed the way I thought,\u2019\u201d Hinton said. \u201cI get letters from white Americans, and they\u2019ll say \u2018Mr. Hinton, I was born white and privileged, and I never have used my privilege the way that I should have. After reading your book, I promise you I\u2019m going to use it the way I think I should use it.\u2019 That makes me feel wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n Hinton signed copies after his talk in McAlister, which was sponsored by the Furman University NAACP, Furman University Religious Council, Furman University Poverty Awareness Committee, Furman University Diversity Council and St. Joseph\u2019s Catholic School. The event was organized by the Riley Institute at Furman\u2019s Advance Team<\/a>, a select group of Furman students who act as ambassadors for Furman and the Riley Institute.<\/p>\n Following Hinton\u2019s remarks, Jonathan Kubakundimana \u201916, who works as an EJI associate, discussed the institute\u2019s work advancing criminal justice reform.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t lie to you: I wake up every morning, and I wonder what it is that makes us dislike one another, what it is to make us be racists,\u201d Hinton said. \u201cDeath row is the only place that I ever been that I didn\u2019t experience any racism \u2026 I hate that I think people look at me and they judge me for my color.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/20190227_AnthonyRayHinton_RileyInstitute-59.jpg\")