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The Church of Morris Dees - How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intoleranceby Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine, November, 2000 Excerpts: ...who could object to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Montgomery, Alabama-based group... Cofounded in 1971 by civil rights lawyer cum direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees... ... Morris Dees--who made millions hawking, by direct mail, such humble commodities as birthday cakes, cookbooks (including Favorite Recipes of American Home Economics Teachers), tractor seat cushions, rat poison, and, in exchange for a mailing list containing 700,000 names, presidential candidate George McGovern--is nothing if not a good salesman... Today, the SPLC's treasury bulges with $120 million... The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors, estimating that the SPLC could operate for 4.6 years without making another tax-exempt nickel... The SPLC's "other important work for justice" consists mainly in spying on private citizens who belong to "hate groups,"... In 1986, the center's entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees's refusal to address issues--such as homelessness, voter registration, and affirmative action... Another lawyer... told reporters that the center's programs were calculated to cash in on "black pain and white guilt."... ... "Morris and I ... shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money," recalls Dees's business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer). "We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich." They were so unparticular, in fact, that in 1961 they defended a man, guilty of beating up a journalist covering the Freedom Riders, whose legal fees were paid by the Klan. "You are a fraud and a conman," the Southern Center's director, Stephen Bright, wrote in a 1996 letter to Dees...
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