Apartheid. USA 1988

November 1, 1987:

Beulah Mae Donald (66) mother of Michael Donald (19) dreamt that there was a steel-gray casket in her living-room. Who was the dead man laid out in a gray suit? She couldn't tell. When she woke up from her dream the morning of March 21, 1981, the first thing she did was to look in the other bedroom, where her youngest child slept. But Michael wasn't there. But a few blocks away, in the racially

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mixed neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama, about a mile from the police station, Donald's body was hanging from a tree. Around his neck was a perfectly tied noose with 13 loops.

For Bennie Jack Hays (64) Titan of the United Klans the 25 policemen gathering around Michael Donald's dead body represented the happy conclusion of an extremely unhappy development. That week, a jury had been struggling to reach a verdict in the case of a black man accused of murdering a white policeman. To Hays - the second highest Klan official in Alabama - and his fellow members of Unit 900 of the United Klans, the presence of blacks on the jury meant that a guilty man would go free. Hays had said, ‘If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.’ After the jurors had announced they couldn't reach a verdict, the Klansmen got together at the house of Benny Hays and decided to go hunting for a black man. Henry Francis Hays (26), Bennie's son took out a rope and James (Tiger) Knowles (17) produced a borrowed pistol. The two got into Henry's car.

Michael Donald was alone, walking home after midnight, when Knowles and Hays spotted him. They pulled over, asked him for directions to a night club, then pointed a gun at him and ordered him to get in. They drove to the next county. When they stopped, Michael begged them not to kill him, then tried to escape. Henry Hays and Knowles chased him, caught him, hit him with a tree limb more than a hundred times, and when he was no longer moving, wrapped the rope around his neck. Henry Hays shoved his boot in Michael's face and pulled on the rope. For good measure they cut his throat.

‘Around the time Mrs Donald was having her nightmare,’ reported screen-writer Jesse Kornbluth in a cover story for the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times, ‘Henry Hays and Knowles returned to the party at Bennie Hays's house, where they showed off their handiwork, and looping the

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rope over a camphor tree, raised Michael's body just high enough so he would swing.’

It took two years, a second FBI investigation and a skillfully elicited confession to convict Tiger Knowles of violating Michael Donald's civil rights and Henry Hays of murder. Hays, who received the death sentence, is that rarest of Southern killers: a white man slated to die for the murder of a black.^165.

In America a new discussion evolved around the theme: what is a crime of prejudice? In New York City as of the end of September 122 reports on biased-related assaults had reached the Police Department compared to 56 in all of 1986.

A 22-year-old white man and two white women are walking down a street in Brooklyn. Five black youths approach. Without a word they punch the white man, break his nose and flee. The police classify the attack as racially motivated, but is it indeed? The Bias Incident Investigating Unit started seven years ago in response to a wave of anti-Semitic vandalism. All bias related incidents are reviewed by a Unit that includes three sergeants, one black, one white and one Hispanic and is assisted by 18 investigators. This year up to September the Unit had investigated 1 763 reported incidents.^166.

Blacks, who constitute about 11 percent of the 29 300-mem-ber New York City Police force, have no representation in the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association executive board and account for only four of the union's 360 delegates. While some black officers convey a sense that race-related tensions - and incidents - have increased within the Police Department, others, including black Police Commissioner Benjamin Ward, disagree. Leaders of the Guardians, an association of 2 500 black officers, say they have not even

165. The New York Times. Unfortunately there's a lack of space to cite from Mr Kornbluth's moving description of Mother Donald, and the way she learned to accept Michael's death.

166. The New York Times, from a report by Todd S Purdum

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attended recent union conventions because of hostility on the part of white officers. Detective Roger Abel, president of the Guardians, said, ‘Every time we would send someone there, they would boo or make derogatory remarks.’^167.

167. The New York Times, from a report by Howard W French