Lynching of Michael Donald

Michael Donald was a 19-year-old African-American who was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Mobile, Alabama, on March 21, 1981. He was one of the last reported lynching victims in the United States. Several KKK members beat and killed Donald. His body was hung from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electric chair in 1997, while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison in 1985 after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays. Knowles was paroled after serving 25 years. Benjamin Cox was convicted as an accomplice and also sentenced to life in prison in 1989. Cox was paroled in 2000. A fourth was indicted but died before his trial could be completed.

Hays's execution was the first in Alabama since 1913 for a white-on-black crime. It was the only execution of a Klan member during the 20th century for the murder of an African American person. (July 24, 1961 – March 21, 1981) was born in Mobile, Alabama, the son of Beulah Mae (Greggory) Donald and David Donald. He was the youngest of six children.

Donald grew up in a city and state influenced by the passage in the mid-1960s of federal civil rights legislation that ended legal segregation and provided for federal oversight and enforcement of voting rights. African Americans could again participate in politics in the South; their ability to register to vote also meant that they were selected for juries.

Background

In 1981, Josephus Anderson, an African American charged with the murder of a white policeman in Birmingham, Alabama, during an armed robbery, was tried in Mobile, where the case had been moved in a change of venue.

The first trial of Anderson ended with a deadlock of the mixed white-black jury. – along with James Llewellyn "Tiger" Knowles (aged 17), both drove around Mobile looking for a black person to attack, armed with a gun and equipped with a rope borrowed from Frank Cox, Hays's brother-in-law.

Murder

While Hays and Knowles were cruising through one of Mobile's mostly black neighborhoods, they spotted Michael Donald walking home after he bought a pack of cigarettes for his sister, at the nearby gas station.

On June 6, 1981, Ralph Hayes and the Edgar brothers were released from custody after it was determined that Kelly had committed perjury. On July 1, Kelly was convicted of perjury. On July 28, Kelly, who had four prior felony convictions, including one for attempted murder, was sentenced to life in prison as a habitual offender.

The FBI investigated the case and it was ready to close its investigation, He was incarcerated in the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama, while on death row.

Hays was executed in "Yellow Mama", Alabama's electric chair, on June 6, 1997. Among the witnesses to the execution was Michael Donald's brother, Stanley. The execution of Hays was Alabama's first for a white-on-black crime since 1913, when two white men were hanged for the murder of a black man. Hays is the only known Ku Klux Klan member to have been executed in the 20th century for the murder of an African American. Asked if wanted to make a final statement, Hays mouthed "I love you" to Stanley Donald and made a thumbs-up sign.

Hays publicly maintained his innocence to the end. At his funeral, however, Reverend Bob Smith, president of the Mobile chapter of the NAACP, revealed that a tearful Hays had privately made a 40-minute confession to Donald's murder to him two days before his execution. According to later reporting, Hays had renounced his racist views in prison. He befriended several black death row inmates. When Bennie Hays visited his son in prison, Hays introduced Anthony Ray Hinton and another black death row inmate to him as his friends. Bennie Hays refused to shake their hands or even speak with them and later angrily told his son, "Don't you ever let a nigger over to this table."

James Knowles

James Llewellyn "Tiger" Knowles was indicted by a federal grand jury in 1985 for violating the civil rights of Michael Donald, and pleaded guilty to civil rights violations in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

Knowles avoided a death sentence by testifying against Hays, Cox, and other Klansmen at the trial.

In 2008, Knowles, who now had a job and was in the Federal Witness Protection Program, had not changed his name. He had black friends, but was reluctant to tell them about his past.

Benjamin Cox

Benjamin Franklin Cox Jr., a truck driver from Mobile who provided the rope and a pistol, was initially discharged by a trial judge in 1984, citing Alabama's 3-year statute of limitations for criminal conspiracy. However, an Alabama grand jury reindicted Cox for murder in 1987. Initially resulting in a mistrial in 1988, a second trial held on May 18, 1989, led to Cox's conviction for being an accomplice in Donald's killing.

Bennie Hays

Henry Hays's father, Bennie Jack Hays, the former leader of the United Klans in southern Alabama, was indicted for inciting the murder. Tried some years later, his case ended in a mistrial when he collapsed in court. Hays died of a heart attack before he could be retried. The civil trial brought out evidence that enabled the criminal indictment and conviction of Cox as an accomplice, and of Bennie Jack Hays for inciting the murder.

The original complaint was considered too vague to hold up, but Judge Alex T. Howard Jr. helped refine the legal theory of "agency," which held the Klan accountable for the acts of its members. This prevented the case from being dismissed before it could go to the jury. In 1987, an all-white jury had decided that rather than hold Knowles, the elder and younger Hayses liable, it found the entire UKA as a group to be at fault. The UKA was ordered to pay damages of $7 million in the wrongful death verdict in the case. She died the following year on September 17, 1988.

Commemoration

thumb|Michael Donald Avenue

In 2006, Mobile commemorated Michael Donald by renaming Herndon Avenue, where the murderers had hanged Donald's body, after Donald. Mobile's first black mayor, Sam Jones, presided over a small gathering of Donald's family and local leaders at the commemoration. Ravi Howard wrote a novel, Like Trees, Walking (2007), based on the murder. He won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in 2008 for it. Laurence Leamer wrote a book, The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan (2016), chronicling the case.

In film and television, the 1991 film Line of Fire (also called Blind Hate) depicts the civil court case related to the murder. Ted Koppel created "The Last Lynching", a Discovery Channel television program about US civil rights history that aired in October 2008. It centered on the murder of Michael Donald, the criminal prosecution of his killers, and the civil suit against the UKA. In 2021, CNN produced a four-episode miniseries, The People v. The Klan, that focused on Beulah Mae Donald's lawsuit against the UKA.

References

External links

Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America , 2011, by B.J. Hollars, University of Alabama Press
Beulah Mae Donald v. United Klans of America, Southern Poverty Law Center
Murder of Michael Donald, Spartacus