The Sun Does Shine is a book by Anthony Ray Hinton published on March
2018 by the St Martin Press and it is a memoir. Imagine you are mowing the
grass and the police come to your yard, and tell you are under arrest, you are
sure of your innocence and having been taught that innocent men do not run
from the police you comply and then you find yourself in court, false evidence
piling up against you and as if that is not enough you are given a death sentence, well Anthony Ray Hinton did not have to imagine and in The Sun Does Shine, he takes us through his journey. Anthony Ray Hinton is a black man who like most black people was raised by a staunch Christian mother, he was taught love, respect and kindness from a young age but he was also taught to be scared of white people.
His was not even a case of mistaken identity or being at the wrong place at the wrong time, he had an alibi, the so- called murder weapon was not used in two decades but because he was a black man in a very racist system, who
did not have any money he found himself in a cell, alone with his thoughts,
surrounded by men who cry and scream like wounded animals at night and on
some days, the men die, some of his cellmates are electrocuted to death, one
day they are there and the next they are not.
Hinton shows us how through compassion, kindness and literature
people can get through their worst challenges and he shows us the long-
term implications of his sentence. He doesn’t sell the famous lie that “I am not
a victim but a survivor” No, he shares the downs and even says “You can’t
watch a man die– see how one day he is here and the next he is gone– and not think about our death“ (page163).
This book gets a five out of five, it is such a page-turner with this ability to
capture readers and it might wet your eyes a little. The Sun Does Shine will
make you smile through tears because how does he in prison manage to find
hope? You know, he says sometimes he tries to find the reason behind all that he went through, the grand plan that God
was trying to put together. Anyone interested in the black lives matter
movement, reading about the justice system, stories of hope in desolation
and a perfectly written book must get The Sun Does Shine.