Short Stuff: Beulah Mae Donald

In 1981 a Mobile mother of six was forced into the role of civil rights activist when the Klan murdered her son and she was moved to fight back.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff. So here we go. Yeah,
short stuff, terrible, awful, sad story with a bit of
a silver lining on it. Have you have you heard
of Bula May Donald? I had not. I had neither.
Actually I found this article on how stuff works by

(00:24):
John Donovan, uh, and it was very eye opening. Um
Beulah May Donald was a woman who lived in Alabama
who is well known for having taken on the clan
in one she basically sued the clan and ended up
disassembling at least a significant portion of the clan operating

(00:46):
in the South at the time. Right, And this was
not in the nineteen fifties or sixties. This on theies.
And it's a very shocking story, so you know, trigger
warnings about But she got the news when her son,
Michael did not come home. He was I believe, the
youngest of seven kids. And the next morning got a

(01:06):
call that said, hey, they found her son's wallet, and
she thought that might be good news, that may he
may be out there somewhere, but they said no, Um,
he was killed and he was murdered at the age
of nineteen, beaten with a tree limb, his throat cut
and had a noose tied around his neck, and after

(01:27):
he died, his body was pulled up into a tree
and hanged there just a few blocks from his house. Um,
the first lynching in the United States, I believe for
about twenty years. Yeah, I mean that qualifies as the
lynching and this one right, so America's moved on from
lynch ings, and this just shocked the conscience of the

(01:47):
of the entire country, like it made national news. It
was a really big deal. Um, and a Bulah May
followed in the footsteps of Mami Till and had the
casket kept open for the world to see. Really drive
home like this. This just happened like this really happened
it and UM, very quickly the police zeroed in on

(02:08):
the Ku Klux Klan, and the clan at the time
was um nothing like they were, you know, twenty years before,
but they were still active and in Alabama, there was
a particularly violent chapter of the clan, the United Clans
of America. And it just so happened that across the
street from where Michael Donald's body was hanging. Uh, members

(02:30):
of the United Clans of America were watching the police
take the body down, and then later on that night
a cross was burned into the courthouse lawn in Mobile County.
This is all this all happened in Mobile, Alabama, so
they knew it was the clan, and yet the police
were not exactly um, super efficient in bringing the clan

(02:51):
to justice in Alabama at this time. Yeah, I think
that's probably the kindest way you can say that to
two years to get any kind of chrome old justice. Um.
I believe that if it had not been for Beula
May Donald causing such a ruckus, it probably would have
been swept under the rug and gone away without any

(03:11):
kind of convictions. But she Um kept stirring the pot
and kept advocating for more police work. Um the police.
At one point, had Um suggested that her son's death
was the result of a drug deal gone bad, because
that's what yeah, exactly right. So that of course further

(03:32):
and since her and that and since you know, more
people in the country to get on board, and once
you've got Jesse Jackson and the Bullhorn uh squad going,
then you better take some action because it's just not
gonna go away like you wanted to know. And it
was the police mirroring her son's name. That that was,
she said, what drove her this whole time, absolutely, even

(03:55):
even beyond the murder, it was it was that they
they characterized her on as a drug dealer, drug user.
Even she she invited the police to come searches room.
They searches room, they found nothing, and that just set
her off on this path. She also had a friend
and a newly appointed or elected I can't remember, district
attorney who got the FBI involved, And once the FBI

(04:18):
finally got involved in the local police were kind of
pushed to the background. Uh. Two men were arrested UM
a guy named Henry Hayes and another guy named James
Tiger Knowles twenty six and seventeen, respectively, and they were convicted.
They were tried and convicted of killing Michael Donald um

(04:39):
And and the whole thing, it turned out was was
created were spurred on by the clan's anger at a
local jury um to have failed to convict a black
man for the murder of a white policeman, so they
decided to even things by finding a random, hapless, nineteen
year old man who happened to be walking down the
street um at the wrong time. Well, it was strictly

(05:01):
a case of the wrong place at the wrong time,
and that's what led to the murder of Michael Donald. Uh,
that's right. He believe Hayes will sentenced to death. No,
also sentenced to life in prison. And we're going to
take a break because that is not the end of
this story. UM. It gets better from here, all right.

(05:42):
So we promised a silver lining and uh, you know,
of course, when something like this happens, it's a tragedy
that can't be undone. But Bulamay was not finished with
the clan and decided, you know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna sue him. I'm gonna take them to civil trial.
I don't think this had ever been and done. This
was in UM other planeiffs jumped on board and they

(06:05):
sought compensation for UM. What they said was basically a
right to live free and free from being intimidated and
harassed and physically harmed and killed because the clan is
still in operation, because we're black citizens of the United States.
And I'm sure at first they probably thought like this

(06:26):
lawsuits going nowhere, but that was not the case. Knowing
the lawsuit was helped out by a number of people,
including the Southern Poverty Law Centers founder Morris D's and UM.
In that that civil suit, like you were saying, they
basically alleged that the clan as an organization was trying
to to deprive black citizens throughout Alabama from some of

(06:49):
their basic constitutional rights by intimidating them, by murdering black
people to to use as an intimidation tactic, UM and
in doing that, by depriving them of their rights. They
had like actually a really strong lawsuit. The thing that
made it unusual, well, one they were suing the clan,

(07:09):
but two they were coming at the clan as an organization.
So in the same way that like if you work
at McDonald's and you don't like the looks of one
of your customers and you throw hot fried grease in
their face, it's not just on you. McDonald's is culpable too.
They hired you. You're a representative of their corporation, Like
they're on the hook too. That's how they were trying
to sue the clan. These weren't just clan members. They

(07:30):
were definitely clan members that did this, but the clan
as a whole was being sued because the organization encouraged
this kind of behavior, if not that particular act specifically. Yeah,
and so Hayes and and Knowles were obviously convicted for
the crime named in the suit, but more people were

(07:52):
dragged into this. UM. Hayes's father, Benny Jack Hayes, he
was an official, pretty high ranking one in the clan.
A man by the name of Frank Cox, and another
clan member who uh supposedly supplies supplied the rope used
for the hanging. That was Frank Cox. Yeah, ok oh,
that was Cox. Okay um so inn. In February of

(08:14):
that year, a jury in all white jury, mind you
h in the U. S. District Court the Southern District
of Alabama, UM awarded Beulah Maydonald and the other plaintiff
seven million bucks, which is about fifteen to seventeen million
dollars today. And that was a real settlement, Like she
basically uh was handed the keys to their headquarters and

(08:39):
she sold it for money. Yeah, the clan did not
have sixteen million in today's dollars to hand us anybody. Again,
they were on the wayne. So this bankrupted the clan. UM.
Beulah Maydonald's lawsuit bankrupted the the United Clans. Um again
this really violent group and this this was this group
in particular, was they responsible for the Sixteenth Street Baptist

(09:01):
Church bombing. They murdered Viola Louso, the civil rights activist
at Selma. They beat freedom writers in Birmingham. This group
really excelled at being pieces of human garbage. And she
disassembled their group. She she bankrupted them. But even better, chuck,
even better than that. Because of evidence that was presented
at the civil trial, Jack Hayes and Frank Cox were

(09:24):
also indicted as well, along with Knowls and the younger
Henry Hayes, who had already been convicted. That's right, Uh,
and it doed. It did not end well for any
of them. Uh. Henry Hayes, who actually committed the murder,
Um died by way of electric chair. Even though Beula May,
who was a devout I believe Baptist, was against the

(09:45):
death penalty and was not in favor of the man
who killed her son dying in the electric chair. Uh.
He was forty two years old. I think it was
the very first execution of a white person for crimes
against a black person in more than eighty years in
the State of Alabama. Benny Jack Hayes, the father Um,

(10:07):
he was indicted to but he died before his trial
was completed. He was never sentenced. But Frank Cox, the
guy who supplied the rope, he was found guilty and
sentenced to ninety nine years in prison. So all these
guys who basically decided to do this like got like
real justice in Alabama. Again, like it's nine eighty one,
but it's still eighty one in Alabama. And the an

(10:28):
all white jury jury favor found in favor of Beulah
may and her Um her lawsuit. And then when after
these other guys too, it was about as beautiful an
outcome as you could hope for from some despicable act
like this. Absolutely knowles, if you're wondering the other young man,
I believe he, like you said, he was seventeen at

(10:50):
the time of the murder. Um was very seemingly remorseful.
At the civil trial. Um apologized in tears to Beulah
May Uh testify against the other guys, and but he
still went to prison for quite a long time. He
was just released in Yeah, I think around twenty five
years in prison is what he did. Um and Beulah

(11:11):
May throughout like even at their their criminal trials, she
she said that they she forgave both of them, She
forgave them all. It was again the thing that drove
her was clearing her son's name, that this was not
a drug deal. This was the clan that did this
and her son had it was totally innocent. Um. And
as a matter of fact, Herndon Avenue, where Michael's body

(11:32):
was found hanging from a tree, was renamed in his honor. Yeah,
and if you want to know more about it, CN
ended a four part series called The People Versus the
Claim The Untold story of Beulah May Donald, which seems
work worth checking out. Yeah. And Beulah May herself passed
away at sixty seven, um, sadly only about a year
and a half after the verdict. But she was alive

(11:56):
during the verdict. And I think that was a big deal. Yeah,
for sure. Uh So I think that's it. That's the
story of Bula Maydonald taking on the clan and everybody's
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(12:18):
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