General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Please feel free to nuke all of us Southerners...Drop a bomb on us redneck ignart Sutherners. [View all]lunasun
(21,646 posts)bit of resistance there at the time . Some lawyers wanted to help the vulnerable too poor to fight for rights
History of Protecting Societys Most Vulnerable http://www.splcenter.org/
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded to ensure that the promises of the civil rights movement became a reality for all.
By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had ushered in the promise of racial equality as new laws ended legal apartheid in the United States. But the new laws had not yet brought the fundamental changes needed in the South.
Black people were still excluded from good jobs, decent housing, elective office, a quality education and a range of other opportunities. There were few places for the disenfranchised and the poor to turn for justice. Enthusiasm for the civil rights movement had waned and few lawyers in the South were willing to take controversial cases to test new civil rights laws.
Alabama lawyer and businessman Morris Dees sympathized with the plight of the poor and the powerless. The son of an Alabama farmer, he had witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice.
The lawyers formally incorporated the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971, and civil rights activist Julian Bond was named the first president.
In the decades since its founding, the SPLC has shut down some of the nations most dangerous hate groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims. It has dismantled institutional racism in the South, reformed juvenile justice practices, shattered barriers to equality for women, children and the disabled, and protected low-wage immigrant workers from abuse