Michael Donald

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Michael Donald (born July 24, 1961 , † March 20, 1981 in Mobile , Alabama ) was an African-American US citizen who was lynched by two members of the Ku Klux Klan .

The murder was motivated by the acquittal of African American Josephus Anderson, who was charged with the murder of a white police officer, by a jury from the Mobile Court, which also included African Americans. Bennie Hays, the second most powerful man in the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, allegedly stated that if a black man could get away with such a murder, a white man could just as easily get away with murdering a black man.

That same evening, Klan members set a cross in front of the Mobile County Court. Henry Hays , the son of Bennie Hays, and James Knowles, both members of the Ku Klux Klan, drove through the streets of Mobile to find a suitable victim. They discovered 19-year-old Donald, who had gone out to buy cigarettes for his sister, hit him with a branch and cut his throat and strangled him with a rope. They ended up hanging him from a tree not far from Donald's apartment.

The police initially suspected a connection to drug-related crime, while Michael Donald's mother vehemently denied that her son had anything to do with drugs. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson organized a protest march through Mobile, demanding responses from the authorities and punishing the murderers. Henry Hays and James Knowles were finally arrested two years after the crime. Bennie Hays was also charged, but he died before the trial began. Henry Hays was sentenced to the death penalty for murder and died in the electric chair on June 6, 1997 ; the Associated Press reported that he was the first white man in Alabama since 1913 to be executed for the murder of a black man . He continued to be the only KKK member executed for the murder of a black man in the 20th century.

James Knowles was sentenced to life imprisonment and escaped the death penalty by testifying against Hays.

In May 1989, 28-year-old Benjamin Franklin Cox Jr. was also sentenced to life imprisonment by the Mobile County Circuit Court for the murder of Donald. The court considered him an accomplice for providing the rope with which he was strangled.

Michael Donald Ave.

Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, eventually filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the clan on behalf of the mother, fined US $ 7 million; this meant that the United Klans of America had to declare their bankruptcy.

In 2006 a street in Mobile was renamed Michael Donald Avenue.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Michael Donald
  2. ^ A b " Ex-Klansman sentenced to life in prison for murder ." Associated Press in the Observer Reporter . June 24, 1989. B-3. Retrieved from Google News , October 7, 2011
  3. ^ Gita M. Smith: Alabama case shows how father's sins were visited on son; Whites execution for killing black didn't end inherited racism . In: Atlanta Journal-Constitution , p. 4A. Retrieved June 9, 2007. 
  4. ↑ 'Last lynching in America' shocked Mobile in 1981, bankrupted the KKK - AL.com. In: al.com. Retrieved December 29, 2018 .
  5. ↑ The Nation Klan Must Pay $ 7 Million . In: Los Angeles Times , February 13, 1987. 

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Donald, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American murder victim of the Ku Klux Klan
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1961
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1981
Place of death Mobile, Alabama