Southern Poverty Law Center

Formally incorporated in 1971 by two Alabama lawyers, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded as a small law firm dedicated to handling [Page 1325]anti-discrimination cases in the United States. Today SPLC is an internationally known nonprofit organization committed to advocacy for civil rights and racial equality. Supported by contributions from committed activists all over the country, the center is known for its tolerance programs, its legal victories against discrimination and white supremacist groups, and its investigations of alleged hate groups. With Julian Bond as its first president, two of SPLC's early lawsuits resulted in the desegregation of the local YMCA's athletic offerings and the racial integration of the Alabama State Troopers. Many of SPLC's cases changed the social landscape of the United States, set legal precedent, and resulted in landmark Supreme Court rulings.

During the 1970s and the 1980s, SPLC courtroom challenges focused on such issues as reforming conditions in prisons and mental health facilities, ending involuntary sterilization of women on welfare, and fighting for equal benefits for women in the armed forces. When Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members—Klansmen—in Decatur, Alabama, disrupted a May 26, 1979, civil rights gathering, SPLC filed its first civil suit against a major Klan organization. Within two years, the center began its Klanswatch project (later renamed the Intelligence Project) to monitor organized hate activity across the country, including anti-government militia movements and political extremist groups. In an effort to hold white supremacist leaders accountable for their followers' violence, SPLC sued for monetary damages on behalf of victims of violence, effectively weakening the financial structure of groups such as the KKK and Aryan Nation. The center's quarterly Intelligence Report, read by more than 60,000 law enforcement officials, provides comprehensive updates and online hate crime training courses to law enforcement, the media, and the public.

In 1991, to combat the causes of hate and expand its outreach efforts, SPLC launched the Teaching Tolerance project as an educational program to help K-12 teachers foster respect and understanding in the classroom. Through a wide variety of classroom activities, printed materials, and innovative multimedia kits, the Teaching Tolerance program promotes respect for differences and an appreciation of unity and diversity in schools and communities. According to SPLC, the award-winning publication Teaching Tolerance magazine is distributed free twice a year to more than 600,000 educators in more than 70 countries. In 2001, the website http://Tolerance.org was created to further support anti-bias activism and dismantle bigotry through a collection of online guides and resources. The center also sponsored the creation of a civil rights memorial in downtown Montgomery. The black granite memorial, designed by architect Maya Lin, is a contemplative place visited by people from around the world to honor those killed during the struggle for civil rights and equality.

SPLC's activities have long generated both widespread acclaim and ongoing political controversy. In addition to providing legal services to the poor and fighting for an end to bigotry aimed at racial and ethnic minorities, SPLC has been accused of financial and organizational mismanagement, misleading fund-raising methods, and institutionalized racism. The center has also been accused of exaggerating the threat of racism in order to increase fund-raising, of wrongfully applying the term hate group to legitimate organizations, and of promoting a left-wing “politically correct” agenda under the guise of civil rights. Critics have called the center the “Poverty Palace” and the “nation's richest civil rights organization.”

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