On March 21, 1981, nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was abducted, beaten, killed, and hung from a tree on this street by members of the Ku Klux Klan. He was randomly selected in retaliation after an interracial jury failed to convict a black man of killing a white Birmingham policeman. The lynching was intended to intimidate and threaten blacks. Two Klansmen were arrested and convicted. Morris Dees, cofounder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Alabama state Senator Michael Figures filed suit on behalf of Michael Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald. A jury awarded her $7 million, bankrupting the United Klans of America. In 2006, Mobile renamed Herndon Avenue as Michael Donald Avenue.