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First-time novelist Ravi Howard says his novel, Like Trees, Walking, was inspired by the 1981 lynching of 20-year-old Michael Donald in Mobile, Ala.

'Last Lynching' Shows Racial Inequity, Advancement

We’re often reminded of Faulkner’s aphorism: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” It truly applies in the case of “The Last Lynching,” an hourlong sampling of American civil rights history on Monday night, a “Koppel on Discovery” special.

Most challenging scene to write: "I had a court transcript of the autopsy report in which the medical examiner described the condition of Michael Donald's body. Just relaying that in prose form was difficult, because these were the details of a crime committed against an actual person."

Ravi Howard spent the last few years investigating a murder that happened in Mobile, Ala., where Howard is originally from. He had gone to school up North and made a home there, but found himself pulled back to the South to raise a family. The same thing is happening to many of his friends, too.