Michael Donald
ID: AL1981032101
Name(s) of People Lynched: Michael Donald
Number of People Lynched: 1
Race: Black
Gender: Male
Lynching Date(s): 1981-03-21
Year Marker Erected: 2017
Erected by: African-American Heritage Trail of Mobile
City: Mobile
County: Mobile
State: Alabama
Marker Text: On March 21, 1981, 19-year-old Michael Donald was abducted, beaten, killed and hung from a tree on this street by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He was randomly selected in retaliation for an interracial jury failing to convict a black man for killing a white Birmingham policeman. The lynching was intended to intimidate and threaten blacks. Two Klansmen were arrested and convicted. Morris Dees, cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Alabama state Senator Michael Figures filed suit on behalf of Michael Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald. A jury awarded her $7 million, bankrupting the United Klans of America. In 2006, Mobile renamed Herndon Avenue as Michael Donald Avenue.
Sources: https://www.hmdb.org