Lynching of Michael Donald

The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama, on March 21, 1981, was one of the last reported lynchings in the United States. Several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat and killed Michael Donald, a 19-year-old African-American, and hung his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was executed by electric chair in 1997, while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hays. A third man was convicted as an accomplice and also sentenced to life in prison, and 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. Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald, brought a civil suit for wrongful death against the United Klans of America (UKA), to which the attackers belonged. In 1987, a jury awarded her damages of $7 million, which bankrupted the organization. This set a precedent for civil legal action for damages against other racist hate groups.

Michael Donald (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. He attended local schools while growing up. In 1981, he was studying at a technical college, while working at the local newspaper, the Mobile Press Register.

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.

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. At a meeting held in Mobile while the jury was still deliberating, members of Unit 900 of the United Klans of America (UKA), Alabama Realm, complained that Anderson was not convicted since the jury had African-American members. Bennie Jack Hays, the second-highest-ranking official in the UKA, reportedly said: "If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man."

The first trial of Anderson ended with a deadlock of the mixed white-black jury. Anderson's case was retried, which resulted in a second mistrial declared on all four counts on Friday March 20, 1981. At 10 p.m., local media started to report the hung jury's second failure to reach a verdict. Following a meeting held together the same day, Henry Hays (aged 26) – Bennie Hays's son and the Exalted Cyclops of the UKA – 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.

Anderson would ultimately have a third mistrial before being convicted of capital murder at his fourth trial, albeit the jury spared him from execution. Anderson was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He died in the Holman Correctional Facility – coincidentally, the same location where Henry Hays was executed – where he was still serving his sentence, in March 2021.

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. Without any link to the Anderson case or even a past criminal record, Donald was chosen at random for being black. The two UKA members lured him over to their car by asking him for directions to a local club and forced Donald into the car at gunpoint. The men then drove out to another county and took him to a secluded area in the woods near Mobile Bay.