Southern Poverty Law Center Morris Dees will visit the poverty pimp city of Fort Wayne, Indiana

The African/African-American Histocial Society Museum will celebrate its 10th anniversary. 10th Anniversary African/African American Historical Museum Celebration, Civil Rights: “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See." The keynote speaker will be Morris Dees(read more about Dees below).

The event is scheduled for April 16, 2010 at the Grand Wayne Center. April 16 was the date the late Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. penned the now famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". King's letter addressed the raced white community attempt to justify his arrest after marching in the city. In 1963, King was arrested in what he called, "..the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States." King would be assassinated five years later on April 4, 1968.

Three years later, Alabama born Morris Dees became the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dees co-founded the SPLC in 1971 following a successful business and law career. He started a direct mail sales company specializing in book publishing while still a student at the University of Alabama, where he also obtained a law degree. After launching a law practice in Montgomery in 1960, he won a series of groundbreaking civil rights cases that helped integrate government and public institutions. He also served as finance director for former President Jimmy Carter’s campaign in 1976 and for Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern in 1972.

Known for his innovative lawsuits that crippled some of America’s most notorious white supremacist hate groups, he has received more than 20 honorary degrees and numerous awards. Those include Trial Lawyer of the Year from Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association. He was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal in 2006. In addition, the University of Alabama Law School and the New York law firm Skadden, Arps jointly created the annual Morris Dees Justice Award to honor a lawyer devoted to public service work. Dees has written three books: A Season For Justice, his autobiography; Hate on Trial: The Case Against America’s Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi; and Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat. In 1991, NBC aired a made-for-TV movie called “Line of Fire” about Dees and his landmark legal victories against the Ku Klux Klan.

Critics haves charged Dees as being a poverty pimp exploiting those groups who are discriminated against in order to raise funds for his organization. They have used a declassified FBI memo with this language,

[i]t is common knowledge the FBI collaborated with Morris Dees’ Southern Poverty Law Center in a joint effort to create violent white supremacist groups where none existed before. A declassified FBI memo reveals that the SPLC had informants at Elohim City on the eve of the Oklahoma City bombing. “If I told you what we were doing there, I would have to kill you,” (bold added for emphasis)Dees said during a press conference.