The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle that Brought Down the Klan - Laurence Leamer

I went to law school so the words "Epic Courtroom Battle" were sure to catch my eye. And since I went to law school I am aware that there is such a thing as the Southern Poverty Law Center. And I live in America and am aware that lynching was a terrible crime against people of color, mostly in the American South, during the civil rights movement and before. So the most shocking thing in reading this book, was the fact that the lynching in question, the lynching that launched the epic courtroom battle mentioned, happened in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. 

Yep, 1981. I was actually alive that year and while I don't remember it at all, it's shocking and heartbreaking and maddening that a lynching happened in America in my lifetime. Michael Donald was 19 years old when he had the misfortune of walking down the street in Alabama by himself at night, where he was approached by Tiger Knowles and Henry Hayes. He was beaten, choked, and had his throat slashed before he was thrown in the trunk of a car, driven to Mobile, and hung from a tree. 

That Knowles and Hayes were KKK members shouldn't be surprising. And that Mobile authorities did little to investigate and solve the crime shouldn't be surprising either. Leamer's tale takes us up through the end of Knowles and Hayes' criminal trials. Trials which would not have happened without Michael Figures and other members of the federal Department of Justice. Then Morris Dees, chief trial attorney of the Southern Poverty Law Center, gets wind of the case and knows he is going to use the lynching to bring down the United Klans of America (UKA) and its leader Robert Shelton. 

Dees, it seems, knows racists from experience. Growing up in Alabama, Dees attended U of A and worked on George Wallace's gubernatorial campaign in college. Although Dees would graduate from law school, he focused his work on a mail order publishing business he started with a partner in college. After both finding they were unfulfilled with the business world, Dees and Fuller sell off their company and go their separate ways. Dees goes on to found the SPLC and Fuller begins Habitat for Humanity. 

Dees evolution into a crusader against the UKA was a gradual process and by the time the civil trial starts, he's been trying and winning civil rights cases for some time. He definitely marches to his own drummer and does things his own way, but Dees had a singular purpose in this case, and that was to bring down the UKA in such a way that could be used in the future against other violent hate groups. 

The best parts of the book, to me, were the background information regarding the civil rights movement and the campaigns of George Wallace. The courtroom battle fell a little short of "epic" to me, but Leamer is not an attorney himself and since most of the defendants were representing themselves, I doubt they produced many quotable arguments. 

I picked up this book as my non-fiction selection for Black History Month. I may not have finished it in February, but I'm glad I read it.

4/5 Stars.