page_title: Lynching of Michael Donald
section_title: Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Lynching of Michael Donald / Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: English: Michael Donald avenue in Mobile, Alabama, street sign #2
context_page_description: 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 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 a fourth was indicted but died before his trial could be completed.
  Hays' execution was the first in Alabama since 1913 for a white-on-black crime. It was the only execution of a KKK member during the 20th century for the murder of an African American. Donald's mother brought a civil suit for wrongful death against the United Klans of America, 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.
context_section_description: In 2006, Mobile commemorated Michael Donald by renaming Herndon Avenue, where the murderers had hanged Donald's body. Mobile's first black mayor, Sam Jones, presided over a small gathering of Donald's family and local leaders at the commemoration.
  Donald's murder has been the subject of several works of fiction and nonfiction. The Texan political commentator Molly Ivins told the story of the Donald family in her essay, "Beulah Mae Donald," which appeared in her 1991 anthology, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?. 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. The National Geographic's Inside American Terror series explored Donald's murder in a 2008 episode about the KKK.
caption: Michael Donald Avenue
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