On this day in 1981, in Mobile, Alabama — originally Naniaba, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek homeland until their forced removal 150 years earlier — Michael Donald, a 19-year-old Black man, is beaten, strangled, slashed, and hanged by members of the United Klans of America (UKA), a white supremacist group.

The next day, police instead attribute the death to drug violence. Family members demand an investigation, leading to the murder conviction of three members of the UKA. Two men receive life sentences and are later paroled, and one is sentenced to death and executed.

Six years after his murder, Michael Donald's mother sues the United Klans of America and wins a $7 million ruling, ultimately bankrupting the organization.