Klansman Gets Life in Prison
MOBILE, Ala. — A Ku Klux Klansman was sentenced today to life in prison for violating the civil rights of a black youth whose body was hanged in a tree.
James (Tiger) Knowles had entered a guilty plea two years ago in a plea bargain that led to his testimony against Henry Francis Hays, another Klansman. Hays received the death sentence in January, 1984, for the murder of the youth, 19-year-old Michael Donald. Knowles testified that he and Hays selected Donald at random from a Mobile street and killed him because he was black to “show Klan strength in Alabama.â€
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