The Lynching
- Author: Laurence Leamer
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Publisher: HarperCollins USA
- Duration: 10:18:43
Synopsis
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.
Chapters
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001 The Lynching
Duration: 12s -
002 Prologue
Duration: 01min -
003 Chapter 01
Duration: 14min -
004 Chapter 02
Duration: 06min -
005 Chapter 03
Duration: 10min -
006 Chapter 04
Duration: 04min -
007 Chapter 05
Duration: 14min -
008 Chapter 06
Duration: 08min -
009 Chapter 07
Duration: 05min -
010 Chapter 08
Duration: 09min -
011 Chapter 09
Duration: 09min -
012 Chapter 10
Duration: 15min -
013 Chapter 11
Duration: 02min -
014 Chapter 12
Duration: 12min -
015 Chapter 13
Duration: 12min -
016 Chapter 14
Duration: 05min -
017 Chapter 15
Duration: 11min -
018 Chapter 16
Duration: 04min -
019 Chapter 17
Duration: 08min -
020 Chapter 18
Duration: 08min