Another Way to Fight Violent Hate Groups? Take ’em to Court
But the history of the law under which the Unite the Right allies were sued is no joke. It goes back to a 1981 case that bankrupted the United Klans of America and put other hate groups on notice. Even if they avoid getting convicted of criminal charges, they can still be sued — even to a point that cripples their operations.
The case goes back to the lynching in 1981 of Michael Donald, 19, a Black youth who was abducted at random while walking to a store by members of the United Klans of America. They were angry that another Black man had been spared by a hung jury in the killing of a white police officer. (He was later found guilty.)
The lynching was aimed at terrorizing the Black community. So was a cross other Klan members burned at the Mobile County, Alabama, courthouse that evening.
After local police failed to take the case very seriously, the victim’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit against the Klan organization.
The $7 million verdict they won in 1987 drove the United Klans of America into bankruptcy. To help settle their debt, the group turned over its headquarters to Beulah Mae Donald.
It was a courtroom drama worthy of Hollywood. Like other heroic moms in the civil rights movement, Beulah Mae Donald stuck to the case until some measure of justice was won — and, in the spirit of an old civil rights movement motto, she “made a way out of no way.”
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
©2021 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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