America should be ashamed to say they have the best justice system in the world when, every day, race plays a part in who goes to prison, who don't go to prison.
— Anthony Ray Hinton
Henry Hays was cheated all his life. He was cheated by his father who taught him to hate. His community taught him to hate. My mom told me, no matter what one does in life, he or she deserves some compassion, and I knew Hays deserved compassion more than anybody.
Death row was the only place where I never witnessed racism. We all went to bed with a death sentence on our heads and woke up that way. We had to become each other's support system.
I believe in laughter. I believe laughter is good for the soul. I believe in making other people laugh to make them feel good.
I have a good sense of humour, and that's what kept me for the 30 years I was locked up.
I've seen hate at its worse. What would it profit me to hate?
There was a time I thought I'd never see the sun again.
I've often thought books give you - put you in a world that you never thought you could go. And I often would say, I don't need to go to California. Give me a book that talks about California. And I can put it in my head and imagine what it looked like.
When you have a death row case, you have to make 100 percent sure you have the right person. But these DAs in the state of Alabama are racist.
Being on death row has taken so much from me as a human being.
Being in a five-by-seven every day for 365 days a year is more than what the average man could stand. You weren't built to be in a cage that long.
I don't believe that man was built to be put in a 5-by-7 for 30 years and have his sanity when he comes out if he doesn't find something to escape.
Justice should be one of the things that's colorblind.
Death row prisoners face enormous challenges in finding lawyers who will assist them.
When you're poor and black in America, you stand a greater chance of going to prison for something you didn't do.
Death Row is the same every day - breakfast at 3 A.M., lunch at 10 A.M., dinner at 3 P.M.
I forgive because not to forgive would only hurt me.
A white man of authority don't ever want to admit to someone of colour they was wrong.
The men on death row had been told the world would be better without them. I tried to say that this may not be where we want to be, but let's do what we can for one another.
To stay sane, I lived in my head, where I could travel and imagine. In my mind, I played a championship game with the Knicks. I won Wimbledon five times. If the Yankees needed a home run, I came to bat.
When I went to prison, for three years I didn't say a word to another human being until, going into the fourth year, when I realized, 'You know what, I have to find a way to live.'
I am a joyful person.
I cannot hate, because my Bible teaches me not to hate.
I often say that if I had one wish in this world, I would wish that every child could have a mother the way my mother were. And I never went without clothes, I never went without food... I never went without anything that a child needs. But above all of that, she gave me unconditional love.
I want people to realize that we can teach hate, but we also can teach love.
In the South, people in power feel they don't have to answer to no one.
Being able to control your mind is a beautiful thing.
I have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy.
I never used a gun in my life.
What kind of system do we have when innocent people can sit on death row for 30 years?
I spent 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime I did not commit.
I went to Paris, I went to France, I went to England, I went to Ireland. In my mind, I can go wherever I wanted to go. I left death row every day.
For 30 years, I lived in pure hell.
I was put on death row because of hate.
Hatred is nothing but a form of cancer, and it will eat you up.
On September 22, 2002, my mama, Buhlar Hinton, died. When the guards told me, I gave up. She'd been deteriorating for a long time - I believe she died of a broken heart.
The last time I saw my mom was in 1997. My mom started getting sick, and my mom finally passed away in 2002. My mom was my world. My mom was everything to me. We didn't have money. We didn't have a whole lot of materialistic things, but one thing I can truly say, that my mother loved me and all of her children unconditionally.
When every court was saying 'no,' I believe God was still saying yes. I had to somehow find that faith and reach deep down in my soul and believe in the teaching that my mother taught me as a young boy, that God can do everything but fail.
To me, America need to clean up their own home before they tell another country about human rights. I'm a primary example. America don't care nothing about human rights.
I'm just trying to be a little tiny light in God's world.
My mom was my mother and father. My father lost his mind when I was about 4 years old. And my mom did everything she could to make sure that we was brought up right.
My mother passed in 2002. That was a blow like no other blow.
You get to know everyone on death row. You become friends with them and their families. I met some great guys. Everyone regrets what they did.
I just didn't believe the God that I served would allow me to die for something I didn't do.
What do you say to a person who is going to their death? Normally, we would just say, 'Hang in there, keep your hope up,' because there is hope until the very last second.
I'm really trying to bring an end to the death penalty because it means so much to me.
For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.
It took me a little while to remember how to use a fork. You know, we don't use forks in the penitentiary. You get a spoon.
The state of Alabama can take my freedom, the state of Alabama can take my future, but the state of Alabama cannot take my joy.
Spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.
