The Sun Does Shine Main Ideas  

Discrimination

In The Sun Does Shine, a major reason for Anthony Ray Hinton’s tribulations is racial discrimination, something he faces both growing up and while on trial. As a poor Black man raised in rural Alabama, Hinton experiences racism from white people, including classmates, spectators, and competitors at the baseball and basketball games he plays in and from complete strangers. In the early chapters, he recounts how during a high school baseball game after he hits a home run the crowd chants a racial slur. While walking home with his best friend, Lester, young Hinton and Lester duck into ditches when unfamiliar cars pass them because of the danger of being violently attacked or run over. He also finds that when doing well at sports, the white students at his school treat him somewhat better. Yet Hinton is raised by his mother to believe that the system is just. However, his wrongful arrest and subsequent trial both are proof to the contrary.

No one better sums up the discriminatory justice system than the police officer who rides with Hinton to county jail, Lieutenant Acker. Admitting that Hinton is probably innocent, Acker also admits that he doesn’t care and that neither will the justice system. Acker notes that because Hinton is Black and the judge and jury white, he will be sentenced for the crime whether he committed it or not. However, while racism and prejudice are shown to be deeply embedded in society and the justice system, Hinton believes they can be overcome. The example of his friend Henry Hays shows that even a Ku Klux Klan member can overcome a racist upbringing and learn to treat other people equally. Henry remarks that it’s a shame that parents teach their children to hate other people. Overall, the book presents racial discrimination as something that can come from the top down (systemic) but also from the bottom up (taught within households to children). Even well-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson can be a victim of discrimination, as his eloquence leads fellow attorney Sheldon Perhacs to assume he’s white because he “sounds white” over the phone.

Faith

One of the greatest struggles Anthony Ray Hinton faces is the battle to keep his faith in God. As a young man, Hinton is brought up in a churchgoing household by his devout mother, who teaches him the importance of being honest and doing the right thing regardless of the cost. She also teaches him to believe that whatever hardship or injustice may occur, God will eventually set it right. During his sentencing, Hinton expresses these beliefs to the court and says he’s praying for the souls of the prosecutor and judge who are wronging him. Hinton’s faith lasts until he arrives on death row, whereupon he symbolically throws his Bible under the bed.

However, Hinton gradually regains his faith in God and in justice. During his first three years, Hinton’s lack of faith is shown in his silence, ironically almost like a monastic vow of silence. He breaks this silence when he hears another prisoner crying over the recent death of his mother. Hinton soon regains his faith, expressing a belief that “God may sit high, be he looks low” and comforting the crying man. He realizes that love and compassion are the greatest powers available to him and the best ways of improving his life in prison. During his earlier crisis of faith, Hinton feels powerful hatred for the prosecutor who put him on death row, but his renewed faith allows him to abandon this grudge and instead feel compassion and pity for the man. Faith keeps Hinton from giving up his struggle for justice and truth and allows him to help improve other prisoners’ lives.

Community

The Sun Does Shine’s early chapters describe Anthony Ray Hinton growing up in a close-knit community built around a coal mining company. Although Hinton is raised by his mother to value community, he sometimes causes strife, such as making an enemy of Reggie by dating the girl Reggie likes as well as the girl’s sister simultaneously. The lesson here is that individuals have a responsibility to do right by their community. Just as Hinton’s careless womanizing harmed others, Reggie harms Hinton later when he testifies falsely against him in court, betraying a community member for a $5,000 reward. Hinton tries his best to take care of those close to him, and his loyalty to his mother and his best friend, Lester, are repaid by their loyalty to him.

Communities can exist in all places, including prison. As Hinton eventually realizes, a prison is a community of its own, and death row becomes a strange kind of “family.” Although many inmates are dangerous, vicious killers, Hinton treats them with kindness and compassion, and many of them treat him the same way. His friendship with Henry Hays is a powerful example of how Hinton’s impulse toward compassion and the desire to build community improve his own life and the lives of others. Henry, a former KKK member who lynched a young Black boy, is changed by his friendship with Hinton and comes to see Hinton, a Black man, as his brother. Even the guards, who are tasked with keeping the inmates under control and to lead them to execution, become friendly with Hinton and treat him with respect and kindness. Hinton never forgets the true dynamics of the relationship between him and the guards but recognizes them as “family” in a sense. Yet family and community are not always inherently positive, as any family or community can have abusive or toxic dynamics, as seen with the “family” in prison.