Lynching of Michael Donald
Also known as: Murder of Michael Donald
- Active
- 1981–1981
- Region
- Mobile, Alabama, USA
- State
- AL
- Kind
- Single
- Status
- Executed
- Victims
- 1
On the night of March 21, 1981, two members of the United Klans of America, Henry Hays and James Knowles, abducted Michael Donald, a 19-year-old Black man walking home in Mobile, killed him, and hanged his body from a tree on Herndon Avenue. They chose him at random, in anger at a mistrial for a Black man accused of killing a white police officer. Police first blamed drugs; his mother, Beulah Mae Donald, pressed for a real investigation. Knowles pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges and testified; Hays was convicted of capital murder and executed in 1997; Benjamin Cox Jr. was convicted as an accomplice in 1989. A 1987 civil verdict of $7 million bankrupted the United Klans.
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Victims
We remember the people whose lives were taken.
- Michael Anthony Donald, 19 · March 21, 1981
A Mobile native studying at a technical college and working at the Mobile Press Register, with no connection to the case that angered the Klan.
Timeline of locations
- March 21, 1981Herndon Avenue (now Michael Donald Avenue) (Recovery site, approximate area)
After killing Donald, the men hanged his body from a tree on Herndon Avenue, where it was found the next morning. In 2006 the city renamed the street Michael Donald Avenue at the family's request.
- 1983Trials and federal plea, Mobile (Court / trial, approximate area)
Henry Hays was convicted of capital murder in Mobile County and sentenced to death over the jury's recommendation of life. James Knowles pleaded guilty in federal court in Mobile and was sentenced to life. Benjamin Cox Jr. was convicted as an accomplice in Mobile County Circuit Court in 1989.
- June 6, 1997Holman Correctional Facility, Atmore (Prison)
Henry Hays was held on death row at Holman and executed there in the electric chair on June 6, 1997.
Watch, listen, read
Watch
- The Last Lynching (2008, Ted Koppel, Discovery Channel)
- The People v. The Klan (series, 2021, CNN)
Read
- The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan (2016, Laurence Leamer)
Sources
- Lynching of Michael Donald (Wikipedia)
- Henry Francis Hays (Wikipedia)
- March 21, 1981: Michael Donald (Equal Justice Initiative, A History of Racial Injustice)
Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.