Previous
Equal Justice Initiative (EJI)
The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist hate group that was first founded in 1865 and was responsible for lynchings, bombings, and other acts of violence against Black people. After becoming inactive in the 1870s, the Klan was revived in 1915 and again in 1946. Henry and his father, Bennie Hays, belonged to a sub-organization of the KKK, the United Klans of America, which was based in Alabama and which was the most violent Klan organization of its time.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Quotes in The Sun Does Shine
The The Sun Does Shine quotes below are all either spoken by Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or refer to Ku Klux Klan (KKK). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
Hell, as far as the police and the prosecutor and the judge and even my own defense attorney were concerned, I was born guilty. Black, poor, without a father most of my life, one of ten children—it was actually pretty amazing I had made it to the age of twenty-nine without a noose around my neck. But justice is a funny thing, and in Alabama, justice isn’t blind. She knows the color of your skin, your education level, and how much money you have in the bank. I may not have had any money, but I had enough education to understand exactly how justice was working in this trial and exactly how it was going to turn out. The good old boys had traded in their white robes for black robes, but it was still a lynching.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Sun Does Shine LitChart as a printable PDF.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Term Timeline in The Sun Does Shine
The timeline below shows where the term Ku Klux Klan (KKK) appears in The Sun Does Shine. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 13
...to a guy named Jimmy Dill; Jimmy says that Henry Hays has money from the KKK, so he’ll probably get out. Ray walks back to his cell in shock—his friend Henry...
(full context)
...town. That night, Ray tells Henry that he can get over Henry being in the KKK, but not that his life is in the hands of a Red Sox fan.
(full context)
Chapter 16
...the Black men on death row show Henry more compassion than his parents or the KKK ever did.
(full context)
