Rights Leader Says Fine Could Spell Ruin of Klan

Civil rights leaders today hailed an all-white jury’s $7-million judgment against the United Klans of America for the beating death of a black teen-ager, with one saying the verdict could ruin the nation’s largest klan group.

Coretta Scott King said she is “heartened and encouraged” that the jury “had the courage and decency to take a strong stand against racist violence.”

A federal jury returned the judgment Thursday against United Klans in a suit brought by Beulah Mae Donald, whose 19-year-old son, Michael, was slain by two United Klans members.

Donald’s corpse was hanged lynch-style in a tree March 21, 1981. He had been abducted at random because he was black and was killed to “show klan strength in Alabama,” a former klansman testified.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, called the judgment “probably the most significant verdict in history toward the klan as an organization.”

Irwin Suall, a klan expert with the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, said the verdict could ruin United Klans, the most secretive of several rival klan organizations with about 2,500 members in the Southeast.

Suall said the group is already so financially pressed that it can no longer pay the salary of Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton, who “had to go back to work as a car salesman.”

Shelton was not named a defendant but represented the United Klans because of his post as its chief officer.

He shrugged off the suit as a “show trial,” and United Klans called no witnesses.