Henry Francis Hays

The murder of Michael Donald in Alabama in 1981 was the last recorded lynching in the United States. Several Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat and killed Michael Donald, a young African-American man, and hanged his body from a tree. One perpetrator, Henry Hays, was sentenced to death and executed in 1997, while another, James Knowles, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty and testifying against Hayes. A third man was convicted as an accomplice, and a fourth indicted but he died before his case could be completed at trial.

Hayes' execution was the first in Alabama since 1913 for a white-on-black crime, and the only one 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 (UKA), to which the attackers belonged, and in 1987 a jury awarded her damages of $7 million, which bankrupted the organization. This set a precedent for legal action against other racist groups.

Michael Donald (July 24, 1961 – March 21, 1981) was born in Mobile, Alabama, the son of Beulah Mae (Greggory) Donald and David Donald, and his mother's 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. Donald attended local schools while growing up, and in 1981 was studying at a technical college, while working at the local newspaper.

In 1981, Josephus Anderson, an African American charged with the murder of a white policeman in Birmingham, Alabama while committing a robbery (along with two other charges of assaulting officers), was tried in Mobile, where the case had been moved. There were indications that the jury was struggling to reach a verdict.

At a meeting on Wednesday, within Unit 900 of the United Klans of America, members complained that having African-American members on the jury was the reason it had not convicted Anderson. Bennie Jack Hays, the second-highest-ranking official in the United Klans in Alabama, 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." On Friday, a mistrial was declared on all four counts and the prosecutor declared his intention to retry the case (it would not be until 1985 that Anderson was finally convicted of murder after two more mistrials on that count, although the next trial resulted in convictions for the assault and robbery charges).

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