thomas figures, he s in a position to push and nudge and make sure that this case does not rest from a criminal standpoint. i stuck to the klansmen. the more i asked questions, the more they talked. tiger knowles finally cracked. and he names henry hays. gotcha. got him, man, got him. so, when we think about michael donald, how long will it take for his family to get justice? how many years? how many decades? how much time? the body of a black man has been found hanging from a tree in mobile, alabama. lynching is a tool to control and oppress black people. racialized violence is as old as the constitution. klans are not running around with white sheets over their head, but it s still happening. today, people are horrified of the police. it s the modern-day lynching. what are we going to do about it?
would have known. testifying for the prosecution, james tiger knowles, pointed at his fellow ku klux klansman, henry hays, and said that together, they killed 19-year-old michael donald in march, 1981, because he was black. the klan wanted the message to get back to the black people of not just of alabama, of the whole united states, that we would not stand for a black person killing a white police officer and getting away with it, especially in alabama. we had gotten the rope, and we got the gun. and then i tied the hangman s noose in henry s car. we were out on a hunt. that s what we were doing. we were hunting. we were hunting black people. klansmen said that they were out hunting black people. and they came upon michael donald and killed him. they literally mean they were out hunting black people. just go watch the tape of what happened to ahmaud arbery when
they had an obligation to make sure that there was no likelihood of any kind of escape. bennie hays told me that i was getting too heavy involved in the klan, and i was getting to where i know too much. if anything ever happened and i wind up being the fall guy, he took his hand and done like that. he said, your pockets will be padded with money. you ll never have to work ever again. but if you ever open your mouth about the klan, you re gonna die. we get up to the trial, tuesday morning. you went into the courtroom, the klan in this part, and then you had all of the naacp, all over there. to imagine a criminal court in the 80s, in mobile, alabama, where you have a jury box with
so, we talked about it for a little while. we talked about it, and then it was over. never thought we would be affected by that. on wednesday night, the local klavern met on the property of bennie hays, who at that time, was the second ranking klansman in the state of alabama. at that klan meeting, they discussed what they thought would be the outcome of the trial. and bennie hays made a statement to the effect that if a black person, and he used another word, could get away with killing a white cop, then we ought to be able to get away with killing a black person,