Apartheid. USA 1988

May 19, 1987:

Under terms of a Federal court verdict Mrs Beulah Mae Donald of Mobile, Alabama was handed the property deed to a 7 200-squarefoot, brick and corrugated metal building and 6.5 acres of wooded land near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Until a few weeks ago the building served as national headquarters of the United Klans of America. The building was turned over to Mrs Donald by the Klan as part of the judgement in a 7 million dollars civil lawsuit brought against the Klan for the killing of her son Michael (19). The United Klans, founded in 1961, was considered one of the nation's largest Klan groups with an estimated 30 000 membership. Currently the membership is probably fewer than 1 500. Mrs Donald, who is 67 years old, said she intended to turn the building over to a real estate agent for immediate sale. The current market value and the surrounding property was valued at 225 000 dollars.

The observance of the bicentennial of the Constitution is being invigorated by an unexpected debate over what

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meaning black Americans should draw from a document that allowed the continuation of slavery. A few weeks ago Justice Marshall denounced ‘the perpetuation of slavery’ in the Constitution and asserted that the bicentennial observation ‘invites a complacent belief’ in the perfection of the Framer's work. Justice Thurgood Marshall, the only black to have served on the Supreme Court, reacted to an interview by the retired Chief Justice, Warren E Burger in the New York Times for having said among others, that the American Constitution was ‘the best thing of its kind that was ever put together’, even if it was somewhat flawed by the compromise that permitted slavery to continue.^101.

101. The New York Times, from a report by Irvin Molotsky