Southern Poverty Law Center

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization. It is internationally known for legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that promote tolerance. The SPLC classifies as hate groups organizations that denigrate or assault entire groups of people for attributes that are beyond their control.

In 1971, Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. founded the SPLC as a civil rights law firm based in Montgomery, Alabama. Civil rights leader Julian Bond soon joined Dees and Levin and served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979.The SPLC's litigating strategy involved filing civil suits for damages on behalf of the victims of hate group harassment, threats, and violence with the goal of financially depleting the responsible groups and individuals. While it originally focused on damages done by the Klan and other white supremacists, throughout the years the SPLC has become involved in other civil rights causes, among them, cases concerned with institutional racial segregation and discrimination, the mistreatment of aliens, and the separation of church and state.

The SPLC does not accept government funds, or charge its clients legal fees, or share in the court-awarded judgments to them. Its programs have been supported by successful fund raising efforts which have also helped it to build substantial monetary reserves. Both its fund raising appeals and its accumulation of reserves have been subject to controversy.

Finances

The SPLC's activities including litigation are supported by fundraising efforts, and it does not accept any fees or share in legal judgments awarded to clients it represents in court. Starting in 1974, the SPLC set aside money for its endowment because it was "convinced that the day (would) come when nonprofit groups (would) no longer be able to rely on support through mail because of posting and printing costs." The SPLC has received criticism for perceived disproportionate endowment reserves and misleading fundraising practices. In 1994 the Montgomery Advertiser ran a series alleging the SPLC was financially mismanaged and employed misleading fundraising practices. In response Joe Levin stated: "The Advertiser's lack of interest in the center's programs and its obsessive interest in the center's financial affairs and Mr. Dees' personal life makes it obvious to me that the Advertiser simply wants to smear the center and Mr. Dees. The series was a finalist for but did not win a 1995 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism. In 1996 USA Today called the SPLC "the nation's richest civil rights organization", with $68 million in assets at the time. Commentators Alexander Cockburn writing in The Nation and Ken Silverstein writing in Harper's Magazine have been sharply critical of the SPLC's fundraising appeals and finances.

SPLC stated that during 2008 it spent about 69% of total expenses on program services, and that at the end of 2008 the endowment stood at $156.2 million. The SPLC's fundraising methods are somewhat unconventional and critics accuse it of leveraging fear to solicit donations, and say that top officials in the SPLC are paid very high salaries. According to Charity Navigator, SPLC's 2008 outlays fell into the following categories: program expenses of 68.0%, administrative expenses of 14.3%, and fundraising expenses of 17.6%. In October 2010 the SPLC reported its endowment at $216.2 million.

History

The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. in 1971 as a law firm to handle anti-discrimination cases in the United States. SPLC's first president was Julian Bond who served as president until 1979 and remains on its board of directors. In 1979 the Center brought the first of its many cases against various Ku Klux Klan type organizations. In 1981 the Center began its Klanwatch project to monitor the activities of the KKK. That project, now called Hatewatch, has now been expanded to include seven other types of hate organizations.

In July 1983, the center's office was firebombed, destroying the building and records. In February 1985 Klan members and a Klan sympathizer pleaded guilty to federal and state charges related to the fire. At the trial Klansmen Joe M. Garner and Roy T. Downs Jr. along with Charles Bailey pleaded guilty to conspiring to intimidate oppress and threaten members of black organizations represented by SPLC."According to Dees over 30 people have been jailed in connection with plots to kill him or blow up the center.

In 1984 Dees became an assassination target of The Order, a revolutionary white supremacist group, for his work with the SPLC. Another target, radio host Alan Berg, was killed by the group outside his Colorado home.

In 1987, SPLC won a case against the United Klans of America for the lynching of Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile, Alabama. The SPLC used an unprecedented legal strategy of holding an organization responsible for the crimes of individual members to help produce a $7 million judgment for the victim's mother. The verdict bankrupted the United Klans of America and resulted in its national headquarters being sold for about $52,000 to help satisfy the judgment. In 1987 five members of a Klan off-shoot, the White Patriot Party, were indicted for stealing military weaponry and plotting to kill Dees.

Hate group listings

Main article: List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center is named as a resource on the Federal Bureau of Investigation web page on hate crimes. The SPLC maintains a list of hate groups defined as groups that "...have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics." It says that hate group activities may include speeches, marches, rallies, meetings, publishing, leafleting, and criminal acts such as violence. It says not all groups listed by the SPLC engage in criminal activity.

The SPLC reported that 926 hate groups were active in the United States in 2008, up from 888 in 2007. These included:

186 separate Ku Klux Klan (KKK) groups with 52 websites

196 neo-Nazi groups with 89 websites

111 White nationalist groups with 190 websites

98 White power skinhead groups with 25 websites

39 Christian Identity groups with 37 websites

93 neo-Confederate groups with 25 websites

113 black separatist groups with 40 websites

159 Patriot movement groups

90 general hate groups subdivided into anti-gay, anti-immigrant, Holocaust denial, racist music, radical traditionalist Catholic groups, and other groups espousing a variety of hateful doctrines, which maintained another 172 hate websites. Only organizations active in 2008 were counted, excluding those that appear to exist only on the Internet. In addition, SPLC reported there were 159 Patriot movement groups active in the United States in 2008, up from 131 in 2007, with at least one such group in every state. They maintain 141 websites.