The Sun Does Shine

by

Anthony Ray Hinton

Henry Hays Character Analysis

Henry is an inmate on death row with Ray. After Henry and Ray become friends, Ray learns that Henry was a member of the KKK who is on death row for lynching a young Black man named Michael Donald. When Ray confronts Henry about this, Henry admits that everything his parents taught him about Black people was a lie. Ray recognizes Henry’s true remorse, particularly when Henry introduces Ray to his father, Bennie—another KKK member—and proudly announces that Ray is his best friend. Henry also joins Ray for book club, and because they read books that deal with racism in the American South, Henry acknowledges the racism he was taught and is ashamed of the views that brought him to death row. Before Henry is executed on June 6, 1997, he admits that he thinks of Ray like a brother. Henry illustrates the importance of community and humanity on death row, and how the inmates’ support for each other supersedes what they did in their pasts.

Henry Hays Quotes in The Sun Does Shine

The The Sun Does Shine quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Hays or refer to Henry Hays. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Discrimination and the Criminal Justice System Theme Icon
).
Chapter 13 Quotes

We weren’t a collection of innocent victims. Many of the guys I laughed with had raped women and murdered children and sliced innocent people up for the fun of it or because they were high on drugs or desperate for money and never thought beyond the next moment. The outside world called them monsters. They called all of us monsters. But I didn’t know any monsters on the row. I knew guys named Larry and Henry and Victor and Jesse. I knew Vernon and Willie and Jimmy. Not monsters. Guys with names who didn’t have mothers who loved them or anyone who had ever shown them a kindness that was even close to love. Guys who were born broken or had been broken by life. Guys who had been abused as children and had their minds and their hearts warped by cruelty and violence and isolation long before they ever stood in front of a judge and a jury.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays, Santha Sonenberg, Jesse Morrison, Victor Kennedy, Larry Heath, Jimmy Dill
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Compassion doesn’t know what color you are, and I think Henry felt more love from the black men on death row than he ever did at a KKK meeting or from his own father and mother.

We had met a few more times in book club and had read Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. All the books talked about race in the South, and Henry at first had shied away from the subject, almost pretending not to know how unfairly blacks were treated until we called him out on it. He was ashamed of how he had been brought up and ashamed of the beliefs that had brought him to the row. “You never knew what a person could grow up to become,” he’d say.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays (speaker)
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Some days, I could see he was tired, and I wondered about the wear on a person when so many lives depend on what you do each day. He carried a big burden, and it wasn’t just mine. He spoke of justice and of mercy and of a system that was so broken it locked up children and the mentally ill and the innocent. “No one is beyond redemption,” he would say. No one is undeserving of their own life or their own potential to change. He had such compassion for victims and for perpetrators, and an intolerance and even anger for those in power who abused that power.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Bryan Stevenson, Henry Hays, Sheldon Perhacs
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

When you took a life, it didn’t bring back a life. It didn’t undo what was done. It wasn’t logical. We were just creating an endless chain of death and killing, every link connected to the next. It was barbaric. No baby is born a murderer. No toddler dreams of being on death row someday. Every killer on death row was taught to be a killer—by parents, by a system, by the brutality of another brutalized person—but no one was born a killer. My friend Henry wasn’t born to hate. He was taught to hate, and to hate so much that killing was justified. No one was born to this one precious life to be locked in a cell and murdered. Not the innocent like me, but not the guilty either. Life was a gift given by God. I believed it should and could only be taken by God as well.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
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Henry Hays Quotes in The Sun Does Shine

The The Sun Does Shine quotes below are all either spoken by Henry Hays or refer to Henry Hays. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Discrimination and the Criminal Justice System Theme Icon
).
Chapter 13 Quotes

We weren’t a collection of innocent victims. Many of the guys I laughed with had raped women and murdered children and sliced innocent people up for the fun of it or because they were high on drugs or desperate for money and never thought beyond the next moment. The outside world called them monsters. They called all of us monsters. But I didn’t know any monsters on the row. I knew guys named Larry and Henry and Victor and Jesse. I knew Vernon and Willie and Jimmy. Not monsters. Guys with names who didn’t have mothers who loved them or anyone who had ever shown them a kindness that was even close to love. Guys who were born broken or had been broken by life. Guys who had been abused as children and had their minds and their hearts warped by cruelty and violence and isolation long before they ever stood in front of a judge and a jury.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays, Santha Sonenberg, Jesse Morrison, Victor Kennedy, Larry Heath, Jimmy Dill
Page Number: 167
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Compassion doesn’t know what color you are, and I think Henry felt more love from the black men on death row than he ever did at a KKK meeting or from his own father and mother.

We had met a few more times in book club and had read Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. All the books talked about race in the South, and Henry at first had shied away from the subject, almost pretending not to know how unfairly blacks were treated until we called him out on it. He was ashamed of how he had been brought up and ashamed of the beliefs that had brought him to the row. “You never knew what a person could grow up to become,” he’d say.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays (speaker)
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Some days, I could see he was tired, and I wondered about the wear on a person when so many lives depend on what you do each day. He carried a big burden, and it wasn’t just mine. He spoke of justice and of mercy and of a system that was so broken it locked up children and the mentally ill and the innocent. “No one is beyond redemption,” he would say. No one is undeserving of their own life or their own potential to change. He had such compassion for victims and for perpetrators, and an intolerance and even anger for those in power who abused that power.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Bryan Stevenson, Henry Hays, Sheldon Perhacs
Page Number: 221
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

When you took a life, it didn’t bring back a life. It didn’t undo what was done. It wasn’t logical. We were just creating an endless chain of death and killing, every link connected to the next. It was barbaric. No baby is born a murderer. No toddler dreams of being on death row someday. Every killer on death row was taught to be a killer—by parents, by a system, by the brutality of another brutalized person—but no one was born a killer. My friend Henry wasn’t born to hate. He was taught to hate, and to hate so much that killing was justified. No one was born to this one precious life to be locked in a cell and murdered. Not the innocent like me, but not the guilty either. Life was a gift given by God. I believed it should and could only be taken by God as well.

Related Characters: Anthony Ray Hinton (speaker), Henry Hays
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis: