"I have been supporting the SPLC for five years now," said University of Massachusetts Professor of Astronomy Read Predmore. "I was delighted to have the chance to hear him speak."
In addition to a near-capacity audience last night, Dees' lecture was also attended by security guards at every entrance to Johnson Chapel, along with a few of his personal bodyguards.
Dees, a graduate of the University of Alabama undergraduate and law schools, ran what grew to be one of the largest publishing companies in the South. In 1969 he sold this company to Times Mirror and began his work in civil rights law.
"There is a battle raging in our great nation," Dees said. The battle, over to whom America belongs is "intensifying," according to Dees.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, is "a non-profit organization that combats hate, intolerance and discrimination through education and litigation," according to its official website. The Center is responsible for several civil law suits brought against such hate organizations as the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.
Dees referred specifically to his recent lawsuit against the White Aryan Resistance (WAR). In Portland, Ore., a young Ethiopian student, Mulugeta Seraw, who worked at night as a van driver for the Avis Car Rental company was attacked by three affiliates of WAR who crushed Seraw's skull with a baseball bat. Dees represented the family of Seraw, who reside in Ethiopia and relied on their son to send money home.
The jury awarded the Seraw family $12 million. "One hundred percent of settlements go to our clients," said Dees.
Student response to Dees' story was powerful. "I was particularly moved by the story of the man in Oregon," said Eric Osborne '04.
In addition to legal battles against hate and discrimination, SPLC researches and monitors hate groups, and programs teaching tolerance.
According to Dees, the most prominent of the SPLC's current undertakings is www.tolerance.org, an extensive website project that launches April 1. The site is one solution Dees offers to the proliferation of hate material on the Internet. "What can be done is putting material on the web to compete," said Dees.
Dees emphasized that the most important way to triumph over hate and discrimination is "to build bridges across those divides that separate us." He added, "It will be those bridges built out of friendship ... I am talking about loving, appreciating and understanding those people who are different from we are."
At the conclusion of the lecture, Dees spoke directly to the students, saying, "It is going to be up to you to make sure that this great nation of ours continues."
"Not only will you carry out the things you came here to learn," said Dees to the audience in his conclusion, "you too will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters."
C.J. Palacios '04, a native of Mississippi, said, "He is a good representative of the new South ... We should hold him as a standard of what we should be."