22 Facts About Morris Dees

Morris Dees ran a direct marketing firm before founding SPLC.

On 14 March 2019 the SPLC announced that Morris Dees had been fired from the organization and the SPLC would hire an "outside organization" to assess the SPLC's workplace climate.

Morris Dees's grandfather named his son "Morris Seligman" after a Jewish friend.

Morris Dees bought Fuller out in 1964 for $1 million, much of which Fuller donated to charity.

Morris Dees used the revenue from the sale to found a legal firm in 1971.

Morris Dees was active as financial director of George McGovern's presidential campaign in 1972.

Morris Dees was national finance director for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in 1976, and he was finance chairman for Edward Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980.

When Morris Dees learned that another lawyer had asked for $15,000 to represent Henley, Morris Dees offered to do the job for $5,000, which was roughly the median household annual salary in America at the time.

Morris Dees later said he had an "epiphany" and regretted defending Henley.

In 1969, Morris Dees sued the Young Men's Christian Association in Montgomery, Alabama, at the request of African-American civil rights activist Mary Louise Smith.

Morris Dees said that her son Vincent and nephew Edward had been refused admission to attend a YMCA summer camp.

Morris Dees introduced evidence of this agreement in court and challenged the constitutionality of the YMCA's position.

Morris Dees was one of the principal architects of a strategy that used civil lawsuits to secure a court judgment for monetary damages against an organization for a wrongful act.

Morris Dees said that the aim was to gain large judgements which would "clean their clock".

Morris Dees's critics have included the Montgomery Advertiser, which has portrayed his work with the SPLC as self-promotional, contending that Morris Dees exaggerates the threat of hate groups.

In 1994, the Montgomery Advertiser ran a series alleging that Morris Dees discriminated against the SPLC's black employees, some of whom "felt threatened and banded together".

In 2007, Morris Dees said that more than 30 people had been jailed in connection with plots to either kill him or blow up the center, although a Montgomery police spokesman said he was not aware that the SPLC had informed the police of threats.

In 1958, Morris Dees started his political career by working for the Southern politician George Wallace, later the governor of Alabama.

In 2004 Morris Dees ran for the board of the Sierra Club as a protest candidate, qualifying by petition.

Morris Dees was identified as a Freedom Hero by The My Hero Project.

The TV movie titled Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story dramatized his campaigns against white supremacist hate groups.

Morris Dees's work was featured on the National Geographic's Inside American Terror in 2008.