Red Shirts Ride Against Morris Dees and the SPLC

 When the SCLoS learned that Morris Dees was coming to Columbia to speak at the University of South Carolina, we were very surprised that this hate-monger was actually coming into our back yard.  Oh, what joy!  The Red Shirts would get to ride again, their third time in 2006 and its only February.

Larry Salley along with Jim Hanks, Jr. took the lead in organising the ride.  Larry and Jim planned a two flank attack against the founder of the hate group known as the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Larry at the head of his troops planned to infiltrate the enemies' ranks and pass out a fact sheet on the true character, or lack thereof, of the man of hate, Morris Dees.  The fact sheet was designed to look like a program of the lecture series producers, Carolina Productions, and it even had a picture of South-hating Dees on the front of it.  It was very well done and deceived almost all.  Of course, on the inside the truth about Dees was presented to the readers.  The inside troops would also ask the Christian-hating Dees some tough questions during question and answer session.

The outside troops were to be led by Robert Hayes.  Robert, of course, seldom rides without the SCLoS heavy artillery, the famous commode, and protest signs.

On the evening of Monday 27 February the SCLoS held a last minute

co-ordinating meeting at Maurice's Piggy Park restaurant where final strategies were discussed and some of the Red Shirts fortified themselves with Maurice's wonderful barbecue.  The troops then crossed the river to re-assemble in Columbia at the Koger Center, the site of our well-planned attack.  After arriving at the battle site, additional troops started coming in.  The SCLoS Red Shirts were then joined by some SCV and CCC member troops. 

If it had not been a requirement of some professors that their students attend, there may have been, but few other than our forces in the audience.  Even with the professors' demand, there were at best only 150 in attendance and a full ten percent was constituted by Larry's troops.

Robert, in the meantime, had his forces set up at the corner of Assembly and Green Streets where almost all of the attendees would pass them and get a good view of the SCLoS's artillery, the famous commode with the FLUSH MORRIS DEES signs.  Robert troops also displayed signs that read: THE SPLC IS A HATE GROUP;  MORRIS DEES IS A HATE MONGER; SLEAZE DEES IS A SCALAWAG;  MORRIS DEES ONCE A LIAR ALWAYS A LIAR;  MORRIS DEES LIES;  THE SPLC HATES OUR SOUTHERN CULTURE; and SOUTH CAROLINA DOES NOT WANT MORRIS DESS.

The outside forces were interviewed by a reporter of the USC college newspaper, The Gamecock. 

Both inside and outside forces reported that their mission had been accomplished in full and they reported no casualties.  On the other hand, we have had from a very reliable source from the enemy's camp that Morris Dees was unnerved by our attack and quite upset.  It was reported that he sustained injury to his pride, his sense of invincibility and reputation.  This engagement was clearly a SCLoS victory.

But until the hate-monger Dees ceases his sneak attacks upon the South Carolina League of the South we will continue to carry our attack to him whenever we have the opportunity.

Carolina Productions

Spectrum Lecture Series

Presents

MORRIS DEES

“With Justice for All”

February 27, 2006, 8p.m.

The lecture will be discussed at a

Spectrum Roundtable held on Feb. 28 at 8 p.m.

at the Russell House.

Addressing the Disease

"Dees has taken on racism directly and championed the notion of equality,” said Bryan Fair, a University of Alabama law professor. “It's not about the money, it's about addressing a disease in this country that has persisted and that has caused so many Americans of many hues all sorts of trauma." (1)

Morris Dees received a law degree from the University of Alabama in Montgomery. In 1960 he formed a law firm with associate Millard Fuller.

In his autobiography, Fuller wrote that their object was “to get rich.” Fuller writes in Love in the Mortar Joints that “Morris Dees and I, from the first day of our partnership, shared one overriding purpose: to make a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich. During the eight years we worked together we never wavered in that resolve.” (2) Fuller goes on to explain that, “One price I paid was estrangement from the church.” Later, Fuller would go on to found Habitat for Humanity.

If you think that this country is diseased and that Morris Dees is the doctor, you may wish to overlook the following. Morris Dees, himself, wouldn’t overlook any of it. Dees believes that anyone politically to the right of the SPLC is worthy of no respect and he grants them none. One thing for certain, he is a smooth operator who has ridden the liberal wave about as far as anyone could have done. He is a winner. Some of his tactics are on record. Others are coming to light as he creates new enemies by labeling everyone to the right of the SPLC as “racist.”

Morris Dees has a certain method. He doesn’t follow the leader. He doesn’t follow the rules either. Let’s take a look at how Morris Dees operates. During the Joan Little case Morris Dees was arrested and removed from the court for attempting to bribe a witness. The presiding judge, Hamilton Hobgood, refused to readmit him to the case after the felony charge against him was dropped. This decision was upheld when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Dees’s appeal. (3)

In another case Greg Withrow testified to having been nailed to a cross. However, on August 25, 2001, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Withrow had revealed that Dees had paid him $1,500 for perjured testimony and that his crucifixion was, in fact, a hoax. (4)

Of all the damning indictments against Morris Dees, the worst comes from his closest connection. He was sued by his ex-wife, Maureene Bass Dees, who alleged that he had committed incest with his stepdaughter and future daughter-in-law. (5)

Why do former associates attribute Morris Dees’s actions to base motives? Why do his legal tactics cross ethical boundaries? Why did Morris Dees’s ex-wife charge him with such despicable crimes? Could there be two Morris Deeses, a modern day Jekyll and Hyde? Does the one hold himself out as a benefactor of the weak and mistreated while the other manipulates the truth beyond the limits of decency and legality to suborn the legal process? Or could it be that Morris Dees is simply a huckster, a skillful promoter without a conscience?

"He's the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement, though I don't mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye." (6) That’s how former partner, Millard Fuller put it.

Could it be that in searching for a better way “to get rich” Morris Dees simply discovered that "The market is still wide open for the product, which is black pain and white guilt"? That’s how former SPLC attorney Gloria Browne put it as quoted by the Montgomery Advertiser. (7)

The cover story of Harpers Magazine’s November 2000 issue exposed the SPLC’s alarmist fundraising tactics with which it raises huge sums that are not used to help those it purports to serve. The Southern Center for Human Rights’ Stephen Bight charged that, “[Dees] is a fraud who has milked a lot of very wonderful well intentioned people. If it’s got headlines, Morris is there.” (8)

The Montgomery Advertiser ran a report highly critical of the SPLC. A number of former SPLC associates indicated that their disapproval of the organization’s fundraising practices lead to their disillusionment and resignation. (9)

The only two African-American lawyers who have worked for the SPLC within its thirty-year lifespan left dissatisfied. Twelve of thirteen former African-American employees whom the Montgomery Advertiser interviewed complained of various racially offensive practices, including paternalism and out-and-out racial slurs. (10)

It is surprising how many former employees are critical of the SPLC with respect to essential practices. Their criticisms are damning. One former associate, Courtney Mullin, summed up her impressions this way: “[Dees] is not immoral, he’s amoral… I hesitate to say the words that I want to say because they sound so far out, but I really think the Center—insofar as Morris embodies the Center—is evil. They pretend to be on a side that has moral underpinnings, [but] they do damage by their dishonesty.” (11)

The American Institute of Philanthropy gave the SPLC one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors. (12) While tsunami relief foundations competed for ratings as high as 98, the SPLC received a 46, spending over half its donations on bureaucratic losses rather aiding its proclaimed mission.

Morris Dees’s SPLC is always looking to make money by “exposing a new ‘hate group.’” Without a current bogeyman its fundraising would suffer, just the way sales of The National Enquirer would fall off without a constant stream of outlandish sightings.

The SPLC is very efficient at creating a perception of danger among its donors, who are mostly white. (13) But then that is what it really is all about, isn’t it? In 1999, for instance, the SPLC spent less than half as much on legal services as it did on fundraising. (14) Does that not expose the SPLC as a for-profit venture, wildly successful at its true objective, which is to acquire wealth and income for Morris Dees?

(1)     CNN: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/LAW/09/08/morris.dees.profile/

(2)     Millard Fuller, Bokotola (Chicago: Associated Press, Follett Publishing Company, 1977), 3-4.

(3)     Burlington Times News (Burlington, NC), July 30, 1975.

(4)     Kelly Thornton, “Skinhead Reveals Betrayal of Movement Was All a Ploy,” San Diego Union-Tribune (San Diego, CA).

(5)     Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, CIV2114 (1979).

(6)     Ken Silverstein, “The Church of Morris Dees: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Profits from Intolerance,” Harper’s Magazine (November, 2000), 56.

(7)     Morse and Jaffe, “Charity or Riches,” The Montgomery Advertiser, February 13, 1994.

(8)     Andrea Stone, “Morris Dees: At the Center of the Racial Storm,” USA Today, August 3, 1996, A7.

(9)     Morse and Jaffe.

(10)  Silverstein, 56; and Morse and Jaffe.

(11)  Silverstein, 56.

(12)  See American Institute of Philanthropy, AIP Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report (Spring 1998).

(13)  Silverstein, 56.

(14)  Ibid.