♪ ♪ Kelly: Welcome to the season finale of "Tell Me More" and our first-ever live taping at St. Joe's University here in my hometown of Philadelphia.

♪ Kelly: Every show, we take a moment to recognize what we call a Plus One, a person who is indispensable to the thinking and well-being and impact of our guest.

You may know that our pilot episode was with the great civil-rights attorney Bryan Stevenson.

His Plus One is our guest tonight.

♪ Bryan Stevenson: Yeah, Andy Ray Hinton is someone who spent 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime he didn't commit.

I represented him for 16 years, and then, ultimately, in the United States Supreme Court, where we won our reversal.

And then I represented him at trial, and we won his freedom.

And I now have the privilege of having him on our staff at the Equal Justice Initiative, where he does community education work.

He's an extraordinary human being.

Anthony Ray Hinton: I grew up outside of Birmingham, a little place called Praco, Alabama.

In 1985, July, and I woke up that morning and didn't have a care in the world.

I goes outside, I fire up the old lawn mower, and I just happened to look up, and there stood two white gentleman that I'd never seen before, and they said, "We have a warrant for your arrest."

And I said, "For what?"

And one of them replied, "We'll tell you that later, "but right now, we want you to put your hands behind your back."

I show my mother the handcuff.

And like any good mother, she began to scream and holler, "What are those handcuffs doing on my baby?!"

And on our way to the county jail, I asked the detectives, "Why am I being arrested?"

They never would say anything.

And one of the detectives turns around and asked me, "Anthony, do you own a firearm?"

And I said no.

I said, "But my mother has an old Smith & Wesson firearm that she keeps in the house for snakes.

He dropped me off at a substation in Endora, went back to my mother's house, told her that I had told them about a gun she had.

She gave them the gun.

They came back.

They picked me up, and we proceeded to go to the county jail once again.

I must have asked the detective at least 50 times, "Why am I being arrested?"

And finally, on the 51st time, he said, "We're gonna charge you with first-degree robbery, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree attempted murder."

I said, "But I haven't done any of that.

You got the wrong person."

He said, "Let me tell you something right now.

I don't care whether you did it or didn't do it."

He said, "But I'm going to make sure you're found guilty."

I said, "For a crime I didn't commit?"

He said, "You must have a hearing problem.

"Didn't I tell you, 'I don't care whether you did it or didn't do it'"?

He said, "They has five things that are gonna convict you."

He said, "Number one, you're black; "number two, a white man is going to say you shot him.

Whether you shot him or not, I do not care."

He said, "Number three, you're gonna have a white prosecutor; "number four, you're going to have a white judge; "and number five, you're gonna have an all-white jury."

And he said, "Do you know what that spells?"

And he repeated the word "Conviction, conviction, conviction, conviction, conviction."

Kelly: This is 7 feet by 5 feet.

This is a bed and a toilet.

This is a container for a man who was at work when a crime was committed across town, who lived in this, 30 feet from the execution cell where he was condemned to die for 29 years.

But this is a mind, a private space within a man that cannot be contained.

With great will, and, some would say, divine intervention, a man can be imprisoned and free at the very same moment.

This is the testimony and the lesson of Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela and my guest tonight on "Tell Me More."

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, from Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, a man who was set free seven years ago yesterday, thanks to a rare unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the inspired and unstoppable Anthony Ray Hinton.

[Cheering and applause] Kelly: Something strangely advantageous happened the day of your sentencing, which was that you were sentenced to death, which created the possibility for something.

The state of Alabama had every intention-- when I say "every intention" of executing an innocent man.

And I wish I could look you in the eye and say that they made an honest mistake.

The truth is being born black and poor had everything to do with me spending 30 years in a five-by-seven.

And so I want people to understand that we have a justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty as opposed to if you're poor and innocent.

When most law-abiding, caring citizens hear this story, I think it changed them for the good.

And I've always been a believer that God works in mysterious ways.

The state of Alabama, they took my joy, but then I decided that the joy that I had, the world didn't give it to me and I wasn't gonna let the world take it away.

So I woke up saying, and I decided at that moment, "I'm going to live the best life that I can live right here in hell."

Time stands still in the sense that you don't want it to keep going because every minute and every second, you get closer to the death sentence.

Politicians would tell you that "We're dealing with mass incarceration."

We're not dealing with mass incarceration.

We are really dealing with a new form of slavery.

They would have you believe that the system is broken.

The system is not broken.

The system is working exactly the way it was designed to work.

♪ Racism is real bad in the South.

You have to realize I grew up in a segregated town.

You couldn't go into a restaurant and eat.

You couldn't do a lot of things that you can do today.

Kelly: I mean, you walked to and from school 5 miles... Anthony: Yes.

with the same guy, your same friend, from 4 years old-- Buster.

And every time you heard a car come, you would pop into a ditch or go behind a tree.

We had a plan.

We didn't have cars, and our parents couldn't afford a car.

And so in order to do the sports that we loved, we had to walk home.

And you said that chilling thing, which is, "It's strange what a person can get used to."

Oh, yes.

When I was there on death row, it became more and more clear to me how some of the men had just gotten used to being in a cage.

And after a while, you have to get used to it because you can't go anywhere.

Mm-hmm.

For those early years, those three years that you gave the state by being angry, there was this transition where you decided that you didn't have to live that way.

What caused that?

I woke up to the sound of a grown man crying, a man that I had lived by for three years and never asked him his name, where he was from.

I didn't conversate with him, but I was angry.

My mom had taught me compassion.

And so when I heard this grown man crying, I got out of that bunk bed that was too small for me, and I walked up to the bars, and you can't see who's next to you for the concrete.

And I said, "Sir, do you need me to call and get the officer back here?"

And he replied, "No.

I just got word my mother passed."

And at that moment, my heart just ached for this man.

I told him that I was sorry to hear that.

I said, "My mother's alive, and I have God to thank for that."

And I said, "I'm going to live the best life that I can live."

And all of my life from five, six, seven years old, oh, I had a fascination with Queen Elizabeth.

Don't ask, don't ask me why.

[Audience laughing] Boy!

Did I not see that coming.

[Laughter continues] I've always had this fascination with her.

And as I was on that bunk bed, I closed my eyes and I said, "Mind, take me away."

But I could just imagine being at the palace.

And I told the guard that I was there to see the queen.

And we sit down.

We talk about Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Prince William, and the tragedy of Princess Di.

For whatever reason, the Queen just stand up and looks at me and she says... [In British accent] "Mr. Hinton, would you like some tea?"

And I told the Queen I would love some tea.

And once I realized that I can leave death row anytime I wanted to, I decided I would get married.

But I didn't just marry anybody.

I married the beautiful and talented actress Halle Berry.

[Audience laughing] Halle Berry and I stayed married for 15 long years up here.

And if there is a perfect wife, Halle Berry was the perfect wife.

[Laughter] Kelly: How did you come to meet Bryan Stevenson?

Bryan Stevenson's name was like a god on death row.

But I had an attorney.

The lawyer worked on my case for four years.

He told me that he could get me life without parole.

And I told him life without parole is for guilty people, not innocent people.

And I looked at him, and I said, "I want to share something with you that my mother told me at age 12."

She told me if I was man enough to bend down and pick up a rock and if I was man enough to throw that rock, then I should be man enough to say I throwed that rock.

I said, "This is one rock I did not throw."

I said, "And the fact that you're trying to get me a life without parole tells me you don't believe in me."

And as he was going out the front door and they was taking me back towards the cell, something came into my mind and said, "You got to be the dumbest person in the world.

You fired the only lawyer that you had."

But just as that thought entered my mind, another thought came to me and said, "You did the right thing.

Always stand up for what you believe in."

I get back to my cell, and I write Bryan Stevenson a letter.

And I said, "Mr. Stevenson, I am truly innocent.

All I ask is that you read my transcript."

About five months after that, I get a letter saying he was coming to see me.

And I say this proudly: the moment I shook this man's hand, something came over me, and I had no doubt that God had sent me his number one lawyer.

And as we sit down, we talked about our childhood.

And I told Mr. Stevenson that the state of Alabama is telling a lie.

The gun they got from my mom's house haven't been fired in 25 years.

He found three of the world-renowned experts, and they informed Mr. Stevenson that the state of Alabama had made a mistake.

We go to talk to the attorney general and asked him to re-examine the bullets, a man by the name of Bill Pryor.

And he said, as far as he was concerned, the right man was on death row and it would be 1 hour, but it would be a waste of one hour.

And we go looking for two more attorney generals, and they, too, refused to take one hour to reexamine the bullets.

And so I sit on death row an extra 16 years.

And when we go before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court did something that they have never done in the history of the Supreme Court.

All nine justices ruled in my favor that I was entitled to a new trial.

And the expert that testified 30 years ago that said that the bullets matched, 30 years later is saying now the bullets do not match.

And on April 3, 2015, I walked out a free man after 30 years of being incarcerated.

[Applause] A person you met while you were incarcerated is Henry Francis Hays.

Will you tell us about him?

Henry was the son of a Ku Klux Klansman.

His daddy was the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama.

And Henry's father gave him a order to go out and kill the first African-American male he came across.

And he came across a 19-year-old mentally retarded black male.

And he befriended him, got him in the car.

And he stabbed him 65 times.

That didn't satisfy Henry.

Henry opened the trunk, got a rope out of the car, and hung him in the middle of the street.

That didn't satisfy Henry.

Henry went into his pocket and got out his pocket knife and cut off the black male's genitals.

And that seemed to satisfy Henry.

What bothers me is that in this country, we love to say, It takes a village to raise a child.

I want to know, Where was that village when this young man was being taught to hate?

And I wanted to know what type of parents would teach their child to hate and to kill.

Where was the love?

And so they apprehend him, and they found him, tried him, and that village showed up in the courtroom as the jury, and that village said, "This would be a better world if you wasn't in it."

And they sentenced Henry to death.

Well, they moved Henry by me, and I didn't know who Henry was.

We had been just conversating.

Another black inmate asked me, "Do you know who you talk to every day?"

He said that's the Ku Klux Klansman that hung that kid.

So when I get back from the shower, going in the cell, and they take the handcuffs and everything off me, I say, "Henry, why you didn't tell me who you were?"

Henry didn't say anything.

But after I seen Henry wasn't gonna answer, I had to ask myself a question: Did it matter who Henry was?

And if I had to be truthful to myself, it didn't matter who Henry was.

All I knew, that this was a young kid that needed love and compassion just like anybody else.

It wasn't about what he had done.

For the next 10 years, we got to know each other really well, and... What did you guys talk about?

We talked about life.

I said, "Henry, why do you hate me?"

And Henry said, "Well, black people..." I said, "I didn't ask you anything about black people.

Henry, I asked you, 'Why do you hate me?'"

Henry finally looked at me-- well, through the bars-- and said, "Ray, I don't even know you."

And I said, "My point exactly.

You don't even know me to hate me."

And I believe at that moment, a light came on in Henry's mind that "This man is right.

I don't even know him."

And we just began to talk about race.

In order to change someone, you got to let that person be who they are or who they think they are.

I said, "Henry, is any white people in jail?

Do they steal?

Do they rob?

Do they kill?"

"Ah!"

When I said "kill," Henry said, "I see your point, Ray."

I said, "See?

Henry, I live in a world where there's good black and bad black, bad white and good white."

Every day I woke up, after breakfast, Henry and I would talk all day long.

And when I finally realized that Henry was coming around, I wrote the warden, and I asked him, Can I start a book club?

Of all the people, I wanted Henry to join my book club.

And the first book that I chose was "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin, and I told him that "Whatever you get from the book, that's what I want you to stand up and tell us."

But to my amazement, Henry had six pages that he wrote about the book, front and back.

I said, "Henry, do you know James Baldwin is black?"

He said, "Get out of here."

[Laughs] And I said, "Yes, he black."

If Henry wants to stand up and say what he thought James Baldwin was thinking, then he is putting himself in the land that "James Baldwin and I are no different."

Did you ever see Henry's parents come to visit?

Did they notice a change in him?

Henry's mother had came to visit him.

And she died on the visiting yard of a massive heart attack.

And they cleared the visiting yard off.

And when we learned that his mother had passed, we rallied around Henry, like Southern Baptist people do.

We just wanted him to know that, "Hey, we on death row, but we are family.

And we want you to know we're here for you."

And so about, I would say, four to five months later, his father came.

Henry introduced me to his father as his friend.

And I reached my hand out to shake his father's hand, but he wouldn't shake my hand.

And so after visiting hour was over, I looked at Henry.

I said, "Henry, what's wrong?"

And Henry says, "My father said, "as long as he come here to see me, do not ever invite a nigger to his table."

And I looked at Henry, and I said, "Henry, "if your father want to die with that hate cancer, let him die, but you don't have to."

So his father came back about a month later, and his father died of a massive heart attack right there on death row.

And it was like God was saying, "Your parents put you on death row to die.

They gonna die right here as well."

And a few years later, they sent Henry an execution date.

He wrote the warden a letter asking, could I be with him on his execution date.

They came and got Henry.

And for the first time, Henry and I embraced.

And I said, "Henry, for the last 15 years," I says, "I am so thankful that I got to meet you."

I said, "Henry, I truly believe that I will see you again one day."

They brought him his final meal.

It was a 6-ounce steak.

I said, "Henry, all you want is a 6-ounce steak for your last meal?"

He said, "Yes.

Can I ask you something?"

And I already knew what he was gonna ask me.

He said, "If it come your time, what is it that you want?"

I said, "Henry, what I want they gonna have to go out in the forest and get it."

[Audience laughing] I said, "When they bring it back from the forest, I'm gonna say, 'That ain't what I told y'all I want.'"

[Laughter] I said, "In other words, Henry, I'm going to keep them going to the forest."

I said, "If there's a law that says "they can't execute me until I eat my final meal, I said, "Henry, I'm gonna be here forever because nothing they bring me is going to be what I want."

And so he laughed.

He said, "Ray, only you would think of something like that."

And so they got him, and we gave our last good-bye to each other.

He told me how proud he was for him to get to know me.

And he said, "Ray, I really wish we could have met under different circumstances."

And I said, "Henry, I do, too."

And so they put him in the electric chair, and they asked him did he have any final words.

And Henry said, "All of my life, I was taught to hate.

"My mother taught me to hate.

My father taught me to hate.

"My community taught me to hate.

"And for the last 15 years, "the very people that they taught me to hate are "the ones who showed me nothing but love.

"And tonight, as I leave this world, "I leave this world now knowing what love feel like."

And they executed my friend Henry.

♪ Kelly: You have another friend who's here tonight.

Yes.

He's been your friend since you were 4.

Yeah.

I can't get rid of him.

[Audience laughing] Tell us about your Plus One.

My Plus One is Lester Bailey...

Stand up.

Stand up, big dawg.

[Applause] We've been friends for 63 years.

I couldn't ask for a better friend.

Oh, he visited me 10,999 times in the 30 years that I was locked up.

He came to see me every week regardless of he working all night.

He still would drive over 300-some miles.

And he made sure that I knew that I had someone still in my corner that loved me for who I am and regardless of what society said.

Friendship is not based on what you have or what you can give.

It's based on true, natural love for one another and respect for one another.

If I had a wish, I would wish that every young person could find a friend, a true friend.

♪ You ready for a little speed round?

I'm ready.

[Kelly laughs] What was your first job?

Like, maintenance at my high school.

Who is your biggest celebrity crush?

It's hard.

Yes, but I'm gonna have to stick with Halle Berry.

[Laughter] If your mother wrote a book about you, what would it be called?

It would be called "The Best Son of America."

[Laughter] If you could say 4 words to anyone, who would you address and what would you say?

Learn to love one another.

♪ Kelly: I don't really know how to thank you for the way that you are in the world and the example that you leave us with, but I really, honest to God, have never been quite so affected by another person.

So thank you very much for doing this with us.

[Applause] You know...

I want young people to realize something.

In America, we seem to think success is about how much money you make.

I truly believe that success is how much compassion you have for another human being.

And I would challenge any young people to learn to be compassionate, learn to have love for those that you don't know, get to know one another, and learn to love more.

Hear!

Hear!

Thank you so much.

[Applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪