The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan

The New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women chronicles the powerful and spellbinding true story of a brutal race-based killing in 1981 and subsequent trials that undid one of the most pernicious organizations in American history—the Ku Klux Klan.

On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found nineteen-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone. Hays and Knowles abducted him, beat him, cut his throat, and left his body hanging from a tree branch in a racially mixed residential neighborhood.

Arrested, charged, and convicted, Hays was sentenced to death—the first time in more than half a century that the state of Alabama sentenced a white man to death for killing a black man. On behalf of Michael’s grieving mother, Morris Dees, the legendary civil rights lawyer and cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a civil suit against the members of the local Klan unit involved and the UKA, the largest Klan organization. Charging them with conspiracy, Dees put the Klan on trial, resulting in a verdict that would level a deadly blow to its organization.

Based on numerous interviews and extensive archival research, The Lynching brings to life two dramatic trials, during which the Alabama Klan’s motives and philosophy were exposed for the evil they represent. In addition to telling a gripping and consequential story, Laurence Leamer chronicles the KKK and its activities in the second half the twentieth century, and illuminates its lingering effect on race relations in America today.

The Lynching includes sixteen pages of black-and-white photographs.

Based on extensive research, this powerful book documents not just a horrific crime, but the landmark case that held a national hate group accountable.

• A Landmark Civil Rights Case: Follow legendary Southern Poverty Law Center cofounder Morris Dees as he builds an unprecedented civil suit against the United Klans of America, seeking to hold the entire organization responsible for the actions of its members.
• Anatomy of a Hate Crime: A minute-by-minute account of the 1981 abduction and murder of nineteen-year-old Michael Donald by two Klansmen in Mobile, Alabama, and the climate of white supremacy that fueled their actions.
• Domestic Terrorism Exposed: Go inside two dramatic trials that pulled back the curtain on the Klan’s violent ideology, exposing the conspiracy that led to Michael Donald’s murder and the inner workings of a national hate group.
• An Essential Work of American History: A searing look at the history of the Ku Klux Klan in the 20th century and the lingering impact of racial violence on American society, based on extensive interviews and archival research.