I'll Fly Away

I'll Fly Away names a chapter and gives flight a brief, concrete form in Walter McMillian’s release from prison: he raises his arms as he walks to the car, turning escape from confinement into a gesture of imagined flight.

Chapter Placement

The expression appears as the title of Chapter Eleven, following the account of Avery Jenkins’s new trial and removal from death row to a facility where he could receive mental health treatment. The chapter title thus stands at a transition in the book, before the narrative turns to Walter McMillian’s departure from prison.

Flight at Walter’s Release

As Walter walks toward the car, men still inside their cells call encouragement to him. Their voices reach the crowd outside, and Walter answers before raising his arms and gently moving them up and down as if taking flight. He tells Bryan Stevenson, “I feel like a bird, I feel like a bird.” The title’s image becomes a physical gesture at the moment Walter leaves imprisonment; the chapter’s remembered phrase connects that gesture to the possibility of freedom without making the two scenes identical.