Biography
Co-defendant of Fred Ahmed Evans in the Glenville Shootout — the July 23, 1968 armed confrontation in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio between the Black Nationalists of New Libya (a militant Black-nationalist group led by Evans) and Cleveland police. Three police officers, three Black militants, and one Black civilian were killed in the gunfight, which sparked five days of uprising in the city. Federal and state authorities prosecuted the surviving militants in what became one of the harshest Black-nationalist prosecutions of the era. Donald, age 19 at the time of the shootout, was convicted in August 1969 of three counts of first-degree murder and four counts of second-degree murder. Sentenced to seven consecutive life terms with a minimum of 110 years.
The November 1969 Movement report identifies this July 23 Cleveland defendant as actually detained. It distinguishes the defendants’ prosecutions from separate contempt sentences imposed on supporters; no aggregate contempt term is assigned to this individual. Source: The Movement, November 1969, PDF page 5. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mvmt/6911mvmt.pdf#page=5
The contemporaneous federal staff study Shoot-Out in Cleveland identifies Lathan Donald by the name Londue. It distinguishes him from his brother Bernard Donald, identified there as Nondu Bey, who was killed in the July 23, 1968 shooting. The report describes Lathan being wounded, rescued from the alley behind the burning Lakeview houses and taken by two Black police officers to the prison ward of Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital. It does not establish his later release. The original report uses the spelling Londue for Lathan; the brothers’ identities and names should remain separate.
The July 23rd Defense Committee's appeal published in The Movement in November 1969 identifies Lathan Donald by the name Non-Du. It describes the difficulty of arranging his defense alongside Ahmed Evans and Alfred Thomas.
