Register Now for a Special DEI Event Featuring Anthony Ray Hinton, Feb. 29

Registration is now open for a virtual webinar featuring Mr. Anthony Ray Hinton! Click here to register for this special event, which will be held on Thursday, February 29, from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. There will also be time for live Q&A with Mr. Hinton. To help us prepare, the NOVA community is encouraged to submit their questions for Mr. Hinton ahead of time by clicking here.

If you’ve read the DEI Common Read book, Just Mercy, you may recognize the name Anthony Ray Hinton. Hinton’s survival of 30 years on Alabama’s death row was one of the stories featured in the book. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Student Leadership and Development; the Library Council; and the DEI Common Read Working Group are extremely pleased to welcome Mr. Hinton for this virtual webinar event exclusively for the NOVA community.

Mr. Hinton’s story is a decades-long journey to exoneration and freedom. In 1985, he was convicted of the unsolved murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based on the testimony of ballistics experts for the state who claimed that the bullets found at the crime scene came from a dusty revolver found in Mr. Hinton’s mother’s closet. Without the benefit of a competent expert to challenge the state’s theory (Mr. Hinton’s lawyer hired a ballistics expert who was blind in one eye), an all-white jury convicted Mr Hinton, who was sentenced to death. After years of petitioning to have the revolver re-analyzed, three independent experts concluded that the bullets could not have been fired from Mr. Hinton’s mother’s gun. With the assistance of the Equal Justice Initiative, led by attorney Bryan Stevenson, Hinton was freed in 2015. Since his release, he has traveled the world sharing his story and discussing the changes that need to be made to prevent similar injustices from happening to others. In 2018, Mr. Hinton published The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and is a New York Times bestseller. In 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Bonaventure University.

For ADA accommodations or questions about this event, please contact Dr. Sherrene DeLong (SDeLong@nvcc.edu).

Submitted by:
Dr. Sherrene DeLong, DEI Events Coordinator, SDeLong@nvcc.edu