Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 184
(from the foreword, by Bryan Stevenson)
Reading his story is difficult but necessary. We need to
learn things about our criminal justice system, about the legacy of
racial bias in America and the way it can blind us to just and fair
treatment of people. We need to understand the dangers posed by the
politics of fear and anger that create systems like our capital
punishment system and the political dynamics that have made some courts
and officials act so irresponsibly. We also need to learn about human
dignity, about human worth and value. We need to think about the fact
that we are all more than the worst thing we have done. Anthony Ray
Hinton’s story helps us understand some of these problems and ultimately
what it means to survive, to overcome, and to forgive.
My
mom always asked when “they” were going to let me come home. I was the
baby of the family—her baby. Up until my arrest, we were together every
day. We went to church together. Ate our meals together. Laughed
together. Prayed together. She was my absolute everything, and I was
hers. I couldn’t think of any big moment in my life when my mom wasn’t
right there by my side, cheering me on. Every baseball game. Before
exams and school dances. Graduation. When I got home from work in the
coal mine, she was always there waiting to hug me no matter how dirty I
was. When I went to my first day of work at the furniture store, she was
up early to make me breakfast and pack me a lunch. And she was there
every day of my trial. Smiling up at everyone in that courtroom in her
best dress with the kind of love that can just break a man’s heart into a
million pieces. She believed in me—always had, always would. Even now.
Even though a jury had found me guilty, she still believed in me. I
could feel the lump form in my throat and my eyes start to sting. She
and Lester were probably the only people in the world who knew what I
knew: I was innocent. They didn’t care that the press made me out to be
some kind of monster. The fact that these two people never doubted me
for a second—well, let’s just say I hung on to that like my life
depended on it. But even if I were guilty, even if I had murdered those
two people in cold blood for a little cash, my mom and Lester would have
still loved me and believed in me. They would have still been right
where they were. What does a man do with a love like that? What does a
man do?
“You
know, I don’t care whether you did or didn’t do it. In fact, I believe
you didn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, one of
your brothers did. And you’re going to take the rap. You want to know
why?”
I just shook my head.
“I can give you five reasons why they are going to convict you. Do you want to know what they are?”
I shook my head, no, but he continued.
“Number
one, you’re black. Number two, a white man gonna say you shot him.
Number three, you’re gonna have a white district attorney. Number four,
you’re gonna have a white judge. And number five, you’re gonna have an
all-white jury.”
He paused and smiled at me then.
“You know what that spell?”
I
shook my head, but I knew what he was saying. You couldn’t be raised in
the South and not know what he was saying. My whole body went numb,
like I was under an ice-cold shower in the middle of winter.
“Conviction.
Conviction. Conviction. Conviction. Conviction.” He pointed to each
finger on his left hand and then he held up the number five and turned
his palm toward me.
My
heart broke at what I read between the lines of his letters—my mom
calling him and writing him and asking him to protect me. What I didn’t
know at the time was that she was also sending him money orders for
twenty-five dollars every time she wrote, pleading and begging him for
help. Here is all my money—save my son. Did he laugh at those little
money orders? Twenty-five dollars was nothing to a man who ate a
thousand dollars for breakfast. But twenty-five dollars might as well
have been a hundred thousand to my mom. Perhacs didn’t know what it
meant to be poor. To have just enough to make it through a month without
a penny to spare. An extra ten dollars needed for an emergency would
mean you had no water or no electricity for a month, or maybe even
longer than a month, because you had to pay a reconnect fee to turn it
back on. I know why my mom never told me about the money—I would have
put an end to it, never understanding that she needed to send that
money, because she needed the comfort of knowing she was doing
everything she could to save her son’s life. I would have taken that
comfort from her.
“Oh my God … please help me. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it anymore.”
I
snapped out of my imaginings and listened to the man crying. He didn’t
say anything else, but the sobbing was deeper. Heavier. Did he really
believe God was going to help him? There was no God in this place. There
was no choice but to take it until you couldn’t take it anymore or they
killed you. God may sit high, but he wasn’t looking low. He didn’t see
us here. There was no light in this dark place, so there was no God and
no help and no hope.
Alabama’s
death penalty is a lie. It is a perverse monument to inequality, to how
some lives matter and others do not. It is a violent example of how we
protect and value the rich and abandon and devalue the poor. It is a
grim, disturbing shadow cast by the legacy of racial apartheid used to
condemn the disfavored among us. It’s the symbol elected officials hold
up to strengthen their tough-on-crime reputations while distracting us
from the causes of violence. The death penalty is an enemy of grace,
redemption and all who value life and recognize that each person is more
than their worst act.
I
knew that the guards would kill me if I got an execution date. They
knew it too. There would be no way around it. I would imagine what would
happen if they all just refused to kill. If they took a stand. How
could they take us to the doctor, feed us, commiserate with us, and then
lead us to our deaths? It messed with our minds after a while. These
men were our family also. We were all in this dark, dank, tiny corner of
the world acting out some perverse play where we laughed together six
days of the week, but on Thursdays, they killed us.
It
seemed like ten minutes before the crying and carrying on died down.
Everyone got silent, waiting for me to speak. I looked around at all the
faces. I was a free man. There was no one who could tell me what to do
or not to do. I was free.
Free.
I
closed my eyes, and I lifted my face to the sky. I said a prayer for my
mama. I thanked God. I opened my eyes, and I looked at the cameras.
There had been so much darkness for so long. So many dark days and dark
nights. But no more. I had lived in a place where the sun refused to
shine. Not anymore. Not ever again.
“The
sun does shine,” I said, and then I looked at both Lester and Bryan—two
men who had saved me—each in their own way. “The sun does shine,” I
said again.
And then the tears began to fall.
I
carry scars that only Lester and Bryan really see. I document every day
of my life. I get receipts. I purposely walk in front of security
cameras. I don’t like to stay home alone for too long without calling a
few people to tell them what I’m doing. I always call someone and say
good night. It’s not that I’m lonely or that I’m afraid to be alone. In
many ways, I prefer to be alone.
I create an alibi for every single day of my life.
I live in fear this could happen to me again.
I don’t trust anyone but Lester and Bryan.
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