About - the third week of Easter

Civil Rights Memorial
Southern Poverty Law Center
Montgomery, AL

Early the morning of April 27 we flew to Midway Airport in Chicago enroute to Birmingham, AL to begin our Civil Rights tour of Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery.   At the conclusion of our tour we planned to attend the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Southern Poverty Law Center and attend the workshops on topics like hate in the mainstream, hate crimes directed at law enforcement/government, and the civil rights of immigrants and more!

Little did we know that our trip would be wrapped around the devistating tornadoes that struck Tuscaloosa, Birmingham and other cities in north and central Alabama.

We heard the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Morris Dees and Joe Levin Jr.; Julian Bond, first president of the SPLC; Pam Horowitz, one of the first attorneys at SPLC and leaders at SPLC today describe the journey from a two man law office committed to litigating civil rights cases regardless of the ability of those most impacted to pay to an internationally recognized civil rights organization employing 185 persons.

The SPLC overlooks the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church were the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as senior pastor and is one block from the Alabama State Capitol where the Selma to Montgomery March for civil rights culminated  - and is just blocks from where Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus.

The event attracted nearly 2000 persons from 49 states!  There is so much to say - and learn from the work of SPLC.  The best way is to visit http://www.splcenter.org/ to learn about teaching tolerance, hate in the mainstream, current litigation, current documentarys that focus on cutting edge civil rights issues of the new millennium.

Though I have been home a week and a day - and I am even more commited to the work of the SPLC than I was two weeks ago.  And, I was not sure that was even possible when I left!  It is not only possible, it is very real.