Friday, June 17, 2011



The Jacksonville Branch NAACP

Mayor-Elect Alvin Brown to receive the Sallye Mathis Award; State Senator Tony Hill, Baptist Health Auxiliary President Mary Greene, School Board Member Betty Burney to receive NAACP Achievement Awards; and Wayne Hogan to receive the President's Award at the Jacksonville Branch NAACP 46th Annual Freedom Fund Awards Dinner.

Noted Legendary Civil Rights Activist Morris Dees, Co-Founder and Chief Trial Lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is the keynote speaker for the Jacksonville Branch NAACP 46th Annual Freedom Fund Awards Dinner. The dinner is Thursday, June 23, 2011 at the Prime Osborn Convention Center and will begin at 7:00 pm.

In 1967, lawyer Morris Dees had achieved extraordinary business and financial success with his book publishing company. The son of an Alabama farmer, he witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. He sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement but had not become actively involved. A night of soul searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati airport changed his life, inspiring Dees to leave his safe, business-as-usual world and undertake a new mission.

"When my plane landed in Chicago, I was ready to take that step, to speak out for my Black friends who were still 'disenfranchised' even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965," Dees wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice. "Little had changed in the South. Whites held the power and had not intended to voluntarily share it.

"I had made up my mind. I would sell the company as soon as possible and specialize in civil rights law," Dees said. "All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives."

Out of this deeply personal moment grew the Southern Poverty Law Center.

SPLC is a non-profit group specializing in lawsuits involving civil rights violations, domestic terrorism, and hate-motivated crimes. Mr. Dees and his associates have successfully battled and dismantled a series of hate groups, including the Aryan Nation and Ku Klux Klan, and have secured huge criminal, civil, and financial judgments against them. He is a strong proponent of education about civil rights and the civil rights movement, and was instrumental in the creation of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, AL.

.

###

No comments:

Post a Comment