Anthony Ray Hinton
Being on death row has taken so much from me as a human being.
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.
In the South, people in power feel they don't have to answer to no one.
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.
My mother passed in 2002. That was a blow like no other blow.
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've seen hate at its worse. What would it profit me to hate?
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 am a joyful person.
I have a good sense of humour, and that's what kept me for the 30 years I was locked up.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
Hatred is nothing but a form of cancer, and it will eat you up.
A white man of authority don't ever want to admit to someone of colour they was wrong.
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.
Life is not always what we think it is.Collection: Thinking
I was not going to allow myself to really believe that I was free until I was actually free.Collection: Believe
If you don't have a place to live or money or whatever, you ask yourself, "What am I gonna do?" But my best friend stuck by me for 30 years. And he had already told me "Whenever you get out, you come live with me and my wife."Collection: Years