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

by Anthony Ray Hinton

We banged and we yelled and we hollered as loud as we could. For fifteen minutes, I screamed until my throat was raw and hoarse. I screamed so Henry would know that he meant something. I screamed so that whoever was there to watch the State of Alabama kill in their name knew that we were real men and that you couldn’t hide us under a black hood and pretend we didn’t feel pain. I screamed because I knew that innocent men had been strapped into that horrid yellow chair, their heads shaved like a bad dog, their dignity stripped away little by little, their worth as humans tied up with electric wires and thrown away like garbage. Innocent men had died in that chair. Guilty men had died in that chair. Strong men had wept like babies, and weak men had held steady as they met their deaths. I yelled for Henry so he would hear me and so he would know that he didn’t have to meet his maker alone. And that whoever stared at him in that death chamber with cold eyes was no match against the heat of our cries. We screamed in protest and we screamed in unity and we screamed because there are times when screaming is all there is left to do.