Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America

Conclusion: The Rope Unraveled

CONCLUSION The Rope Unraveled It is impossible to view the world the same after knowing Michael Donald. For the past year and a half I’ve returned to his city, his streets, in an attempt to better understand him. Parked my car in front of the Springhill Recreation Center just to listen to the basketballs thump. But reminders are everywhere. Even when driving through Tuscaloosa, my home, I often see green signs for Greensboro Avenue and am reminded of Vaudine Maddox, who, in 1933, was guilty of carrying a pail of flour, and her supposed murderers, who were guilty of being black. While driving to Birmingham on Interstate 20-59, I am continually reminded of Dan Pippen Jr. and A. T. Harden and what occurred on a similar drive years before. The masked mob. Their eyeholes. “We want those niggers.” Today, I cannot walk past an oak or a camphor tree without wondering what sordid history might be tied to those branches. I can’t help envisioning the inexplicable, the gathering crowd, the excited whispers passing from lip to lip. Can’t help wondering how the world may have been different if Michael Donald had never left his sister’s home that night. 

$0/$-64*0/ If only he’d been dealt some cards. Passed on the cigarettes. This is the price one pays for getting too close. t On Monday, June 13, 2005, ninety-one-year-old African-American James Cameron—the man who once felt the noose tightening around his neck on a warm summer night in Marion, Indiana, 1930—was wheeled to the front of the United States Senate to describe what almost proved to be the last night of his life. “They took the rope off my neck, those hands that had been so rough and ready to kill or had already killed, they took the rope off of my neck and they allowed me to start walking and stagger back to the jail which was just a half-block away,” the man recounted. Cameron, a sixteen-year-old shoeshine boy at the time of the incident , had watched on as Tom Shipp and Abe Smith were hanged for allegedly killing a man and raping a white girl. Cameron waited for the mob to take him next. They didn’t. At least not entirely. Just moments before his own impending death, an unconfirmed voice proclaimed the young man’s innocence, givinghim a futurewhich would lead him to an apology on the Senate floor seventy-five years later. The New York Times reports, “Although the House passed antilynching legislation three times in the first half of the 20th century, the Senate, controlled by Southern conservatives, repeatedly refused to do so.” The Times continued: “despite the requests of seven presidents,” the Senate had failed to “enact federal legislation to make lynching a crime.” In 2005, the apology was finally given, though even on that day, only 5)&
301&
6/3"7&-&%

 eighty of the one hundred senators were cosponsors, leaving twenty senators suspiciously absent in the voice vote. Yearslater,onWednesday,October28,2009,PresidentBarackObama took a legislative stance against hate, signing into law the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This act granted the Justice Department greater authority to prosecute perpetrators who committed violent crimes owing to a victim’s race, color, national origin, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. “You understand that we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits—not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear,” President Obama explained as he spoke to a crowded East Room. He continued: “And that’s why, through this law, we will strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth. We will finally add federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.” It was landmark legislation, not only acknowledging that hate crimes remained a problem in America, but also guaranteeing federal prosecution against those who perpetrated the crimes. The crowd cheered. We were sure, for a moment, that a new day had dawned in America. t Nearly thirty years prior, Michael Donald was hanged to send a message. Henry Hays and Tiger Knowles displayed Michael’s body just feet from the Hayses’ apartment in order to prove that the Klan remained strong and that blacks should not serve on juries...