The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Expands

Pictures

Update: SPLC RATED "POOR" by Charity Navigator - Net Assets $152 million!

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Expands their the 'Poverty Palace' corporate headquarters at 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama, 36104

What is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)? Judging from pictures of their expansion, below, they are very well off, indeed. From the article Lump of Coal

... human nature being what it is, there always seems to be a lump of coal lurking among the sugarplums. We were reminded of this unpleasant fact again by a Journal reader in Arlington who considered making a contribution to the Southern Poverty Law Center, listed as No. 0454 in the Combined Federal Campaign...

In fact, unknown to most CFC donors, the tax-exempt SPLC flunked an audit by the Arlington-based Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, which requires that "a reasonable percentage, at least 50 percent of total income from all sources, should be applied to programs and activities directly related to the purposes for which the organization exists."

...SPLC...spent 89 percent of its total income on fund-raising and administrative costs...

Granted, administrative costs tend to run high when executive salaries are in the six-figure range. For example,... Morris Dees, SPLC's chief trial lawyer, pulls down a cool $280,699...

... give your hard-earned dollars to a real charity, not a bunch of slick, parasitic hucksters who live high on the hog by raising money on behalf of needy people who never see a dime of it.

From the article When a hate crime is something to love:

...Morris Dees [founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center] won a judgment for a black woman whose son was killed by Klansmen. She received $51,875 as settlement. Mr. Dees, according to an investigation by the Montgomery Advertiser, pulled in $9 million from fund-raising solicitation letters that featured a particularly gruesome photograph of the grieving mother's son. Mr. Dees, who pays himself an annual salary of $275,000, offered the grieving mother none of the $9 million her son's death made for him.

Mr. Dees, in fact, earns — or is paid, which is not necessarily the same thing — more than nearly any officer of other advocacy groups surveyed by the National Journal, more than the chairmen of the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Children's Defense Fund.

"You are a fraud and a con man," Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, which actually takes on dozens of death-penalty appeals for poor blacks every year, once told him. "You spend so much, accomplish so little, and promote yourself so shamelessly."...

White guilt can be manipulated with black pain, but it has to be done carefully. It's a sordid scam. Some people would call what Morris Dees does a hate crime, but it's a living, and a very good one.

From the article The Church of Morris Dees:

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--that they considered far more pertinent to poor minorities, if far less marketable to affluent benefactors, than fighting the KKK. Another lawyer, Gloria Browne, who resigned a few years later, told reporters that the center's programs were calculated to cash in on "black pain and white guilt."

There are big bucks to be made peddling hate, and the SPLC knows how to rake it in. Here's their complete Form 990 as required by IRS for tax-exempt non-profit orgs (here's a snapshot of salaries from the form). Includes a list of the schools and local governments that have signed on to disseminate their hate ("tolerance") propaganda. Total salaries exceed $4 1/2 million.

For more information on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), see:

• Lump of Coal, Fairfax Journal, December 16, 2003
• Morris Dees Fact Sheet, The Patriotist
• Who is the Southern Poverty Law Center and What is Their Role in the Campaign Against Prop. 200?, FAIR, August 14, 2004
• When a hate crime is something to love, By Wesley Pruden, Editor in Chief, The Washington Times, published in criminalgovernment.com
• The Church of Morris Dees, by Ken Silverstein, Harpers Magazine, November, 2000
• Morris Dees background information by DiscoverTheNetwork.org, A Guide to the Political Left.
• Charity Navigator - the SPLC receives an overall rating of only one star and a score of 39.

 
 
The photographs below were taken of part of SPLC headquarters (the 'Poverty Palace'), 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama, 36104, on May 21, 2005. According to Heidi Beirich, Deputy Director Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center, that very prosperous organization has even more space in the building across the street. Her e-mail to D.A. King follows:
 

August 17, 2005
Dear Mr. King,
 
Based on your adamant denials and further investigation on our part, we agree that your only visit to Montgomery was when you surveilled and photographed our new Civil Rights Memorial Center on May 23rd (we actually work across the street).
 
For us accuracy is always paramount. Thank you for taking my call.
Best,
Heidi Beirich

 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

For more interesting reading, see the article Southern Poverty Law Center’s Heidi Beirich Goes Fishing, by D.A. King, September 27, 2005.