Moral Courage Talk by Morris Dees Oct. 11, 2001

Introduction by College student Jennifer Knox
Good evening. As we prepare to graduate and begin our careers, many of us are not thinking about giving to the world. Rather we are often thinking about what the world can give to us. And I have to admit that I am one of those who hasn’t considered what I am going to give. So that is why I encourage each one of us to keep this question in mind as we prepare for the future. When will we decide to give? When will we decide to demonstrate the moral courage that is so necessary in our homes, our places of employment, our educational institutions, and on a much broader scope, the world.

Our speaker tonight is an individual who elected to base his law career on giving justice to victims of hate and discrimination. Morris Dees exemplifies the moral courage that Lucha Vogel had in mind when she established this lecture series to encourage and promote the understanding of moral courage and its impact on the world. As a civil rights attorney Morris Dees has made incredible strides in the face of adversity. A graduate from the University of Alabama Law School, Dees has received numerous accolades for his effort to combat hate and intolerance through legal and educational means. His honors include being named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and receiving the National Education Association’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award.

But above all of this, Morris Dees is best known for his work with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he co-founded in 1971. Dees’ center is a not-for-profit pool of lawyers that specialize in legal intervention concerning civil rights violations and racially motivated crimes. As chief council for the law center, Dees has been fighting and obtaining multimillion-dollar verdicts against violent hate groups for over three decades. Just recently this year an Idaho jury awarded punitive damages to a woman and her son who were attacked by security guards who belonged to a hate group known as the Aryan Nations. The $6.3 million that Dees secured bankrupted the group. Now there are plans in the works to build a human rights center where the Aryan Nations once had their compound.

In conjunction with suing violent hate groups, Morris Dees devotes his time to developing ideas for teaching tolerance. The center’s educational project uses a twice-yearly color magazine to help teachers promote interracial and intercultural understanding. Another project that Dees maintains is Klanwatch, which tracks the violent activities of more than 500 racist and neo-Nazi groups. And it is also a wonder that Dees has found the time to publish three books: A Season for Justice, his award winning autobiography; Hate on Trial: The Case Against America’s Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi; and his latest book, Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat.

And to really get to the heart of the matter, Morris Dees is a courageous individual. He continues his work after having his offices burned, repeated death threats, and assassination attempts. Unfortunately, this is all because of his moral courage to eradicate hate by bankrupting hate groups, educating the public about racial tolerance, and instilling an ethic of justice to those that are powerless victims of hate crimes. I believe that this is the work of humanity. It is also what Lucha Vogel defines as moral courage. She wrote, “Moral courage always rests on principle, not person. It covers a wide spectrum and may be demonstrated in many arenas. It always involves the very real possibility of personal sacrifice for the good of the whole. This sacrifice may range from the loss of popularity, social acceptance, home, employment, financial security, all the way up to the loss of life itself.”

Morris Dees has shown with unwavering words and actions that the moral courage of one individual can make a significant difference not only to other individuals and communities, but to the whole world. Please join me in welcoming our Ernie and Lucha Vogel Moral Courage speaker, Morris Dees.

Morris Dees
Thank you very much for having me especially for this lecture, for this program, at a time in our country when many people have exhibited moral courage. Many things that were mentioned in the introduction about me were things that I didn’t do all by myself. There are many people who have worked at the Law Center before, many coming from this state and other states in the nation, as lawyers, writers, investigators, educators and others, and they certainly have exhibited courage, because not a single person, even in the face of severe threats, even when our office building was burned to the ground by members of the Ku Klux Klan, nobody ever quit. Nobody ever said that they were afraid. So I am not sure that I am the one to be honored here tonight. There are many people who also help us by their contributions and support. Some 550,000 people around this United States who help provide the funds for our $25 million budget that allows us to provide over 80,000 schools in America with free tolerance education materials, some $7 million worth of materials that are distributed free. And maybe these people who support us aren’t out there on the front lines, but they are in many ways just as important. I know some of you here tonight support our work, and I want to thank you very much.

I’m especially glad to come back to Principia because I was here this summer when you had your adult education program. I guess I have some indirect connection with each of you, because my mother was a Christian Scientist. And last time that I was here I jumped up on the stage to show that I’m in good health. But I am almost positive that my 5th- and 6th-grade teacher was also a Christian Scientist even though she went to the Baptist church, little small country school, because a couple of things that she tried to teach us I know are principles that you must subscribe to by coming here. One is that you aren’t supposed to smoke cigarettes. And the second, drink alcoholic beverages. And Mrs. Dearbell Johnson, my teacher, in our little class of 25 students made sure that we got that message, because every morning, I’m not kidding you, and if all the rest of America had had her for a teacher, regardless of their religion, there would be no tobacco lawsuits today, because we had to say this rhyme. Maybe you’ll teach it to your kids one day: “Tobacco is a filthy weed, and from the devil does proceed. It picks your pockets and burns your clothes, and makes a smokestack of your nose.” And on this drinking she was obsessed. In fact she had this little button that she wore, I’m sure she had it saved over from the days of the great Prohibition fight. She was quite old when she retired. She taught my dad, she taught me, and she taught two of my sons. And she wore that button all the time. And on it, it said, “Lips that touch wine, shall not touch mine.” And one day, she was going on, she was also my Sunday School teacher in the little Baptist church there, and she was going on and on, lecturing about this evil, and I said, “But Miss Johnson, you told us last week that Jesus turned water into wine.” And she said, “Yes, Morris, but we’d have thought a whole lot more of him if he hadn’t done that.” [audience laughter]

It was a pretty conservative little community I grew up in. But you know, every morning we would go out in front of that little school and then raise the flag and put our hands on our hearts, and we’d pledge allegiance “with liberty and justice for all.” And I remember then how proud I felt to be an American. And I also have felt proud to be an American over this last month. All of us as a nation, pulling together, to console those who lost so much and to do our best to seek some type of justice for those terrorists who have no love or liberty or justice. Also I had that same pride in our country when we had the Olympics this last year down in Australia, and we won so many gold medals. And it brought my mind back to the Olympics over in Atlanta, Georgia. I had ringside seats when I watched America’s gymnastic team, those five young women who got to the finals against all odds. We beat Russia; we beat China; and on the last night I believe we were competing against Japan. The commentators told us, as I sat ringside, that America’s team probably didn’t have a great opportunity to win, because Japan had such a fine team and had won so many gold medals, but also because our gymnast who was supposed to be our star had a severely sprained ankle. But she jumped last, she landed perfectly, and the scoreboard indicated that we had won. I watched as they played our national anthem and those five young women had the gold medals placed around their necks. And as I watched I thought, those of us in this nation who would separate us along lines of religion and race and other divisions were probably cheering along with the rest of us without realizing that that group of five young women represented a great part of the diversity of this country. Because on that team you had an American girl of African descent, one of Asian descent, an immigrant who had recently come over from Romania, and the young woman with the bandaged ankle was Jewish.

And I thought the last few weeks as the story has unfolded about this tragedy, much of it we understand from Osama bin Laden that he and his followers at least have been told to harm Americans because of our support of Israel and Jews in this country, and others. As this tragedy has unfolded, there was also an example of tremendous courage. On the plane that crashed near Pittsburgh, a few passengers took matters into their own hands after learning through cell phone conversations about the other two planes that had crashed. From the telephone conversations that have been pieced together, it appears that they attempted to take control of the airplane away from the hijackers. And as I watched, one entire family whose father was lost in that tragedy, who apparently was the leader of the small group that tried to take the plane back, I was struck by the fact that this man was Jewish. And as I have been watching the news and especially the profiles published in the New York Times recently about this tragedy, of hundreds and hundreds of people who lost their lives, it’s clear to me that a great cross section of this nation died on September the 11th. Muslims, Jews, Christians, people of all races and ethnic backgrounds. And hopefully the bond that has existed over the past few weeks in this country, across divides that have previously separated us, will continue. It’s possible that this dark tragedy can become America’s finest hour.

But we aren’t without problems to be concerned with. We have a wonderful nation, but it’s not perfect. And as I read the material coming from the over 350 hate Web sites and seeing what the leaders of these organizations are saying, I was struck with how similar they are to the terrorists. One very prominent neo-Nazi leader, his name is Dr. William Pierce, he taught physics at Oregon State until he set up a 300-acre compound in West Virginia. He published a little fictional account of a racial race war in America where all the Jews and blacks and others are killed by a small group of Aryans. In this little book, this race war that takes place around the latter part of this last century, supposedly, it was started by a man who drove a truck up in front of a federal building, filled with 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and exploded it. And created a situation in America that our government became extremely repressive against domestic terrorists. And when Timothy McVeigh was arrested, he had a copy of this book, The Turner Diaries, on the back seat of his car with the section underlined about the truck bomb made out of fertilizer. And when he was tried, it was exhibit #1 at his trial. Timothy McVeigh blew that building up because he believed, like Osama Bin Laden and his people, that America is controlled by Jews. They are both anti-Semitic. That’s Timothy McVeigh’s beliefs, beliefs that he set forth in his book Ñ in the end, his philosophy. His anger at this government, he called ZOG, the Zionist Occupied Government. And as I watched the Web sites, the comments of these hate group leaders in this country, I was struck by what they had to say. And I brought one just to read it to you. This happens to be from Dr. William Pierce, who has a Web site called the National Alliance, and he said, “What happened this week, September 11th, is the direct consequence of the American people permitting the Jews to control their government and to use American strength to advance Jewish interests. Anyone who is willing to dive a plane into a building to kill Jews is all right by me.” And there are 35 or 40 different group leaders who’ve put out their comments. And then there are those others who encourage their members, Ku Klux Klan types, to attack Arabs and anyone who resembles a terrorist in their homes, in their shops, in their businesses. And there have been four people who resemble the terrorists, Indian Sikhs and others, killed since Sept 11th, and there have been some 250 other crimes like that committed not murders but harassment and other violence in 30-something states since then.

With all the good things about our country, there is an ill wind blowing across America. Hopefully our pulling together here in these last few weeks will help correct things, but there is in this nation a large group of people who in many ways are no different than the terrorists that many of us have come to despise because of what they did in New York and Washington. There’s a battle going on in this nation of ours. I am no expert on outside of this nation, but there’s a battle going on that you’re going to take part in. You’ll either take part by doing nothing and let others set the agenda, or you will become involved and help make this nation the great nation that it can be. And that’s a battle over whose America is this? And whose version of America is going to prevail into the future? And there are people who are dedicated like Mc McVeigh and others to insure that their version does succeed. And when he drove away from that building, he couldn’t help but have heard and felt that awful explosion. And when he did, he thought of himself as a patriot, as a hero, and as a good soldier. No different than the 19 terrorists who captured those planes. No different. They thought of themselves as heroes, as patriots to their cause.

I handled a case out in Oregon a few years ago that I think illustrates this divide that separates us in this nation and really paints two pictures of this great country. The representative family from Ethiopia who sent their 24-year-old son, Mulugeta Seraw, to this country to get an American education. Very poor people. Mulugeta had to leave his wife and small son behind when he left Addis Ababa to come to Portland. His father carried him to the airport and wished him well, and he turned to his dad, and said, “You know, I’m so happy to be going to America. I’ve heard that America is such a great nation. If you work hard, save your money, stay out of trouble, you’ve got a good chance of getting ahead.” And he said, “Dad, I’m going to make you proud of me.” Now when Mulugeta got to Portland, Oregon, he had to get a job and work hard to send money back home. Avis employed him to drive people from the airport in a van out to where cars are parked. And often people would leave their personal items on his van, and he would make sure they got them back. And for his good deeds, his personnel file began to fill up with letters of praise. And he was elected Employee of the Month by Avis Rent-a-Car when he was no more than the age of many of you here. And there was another man who lived 1,200 miles to the south of Portland, Oregon, down in Fallbrook, California, who had a different idea about America. His name was Tom Metzger. You may have heard of him. Been on all the talk shows. At 55, having had a failed political career, he decided to set up an organization to get his views across about this nation. And his organization was called the White Aryan Resistance, or WAR. And he set about to indoctrinate young racist skinheads about his views. And he told them that America is a great nation but America is going to fall from its position of greatness, like the Roman Empire fell, unless we get those people out of our midst who are bringing us down. And he called those people “mud people” Ñ anybody that wasn’t white Anglo like Metzger and his followers Ñ Americans of African decent, Asian decent, Jews, and others. And he told his followers that it’s necessary to create a racial holy war. They call it RAHOWA, racial holy war. And it meant going into the streets and creating acts of racial turmoil until there was a time when America rose up and drove these mud people out. And he sent one of his organizers up to Portland, Oregon, to organize a group of skinheads there. And when this young man got there, he met with some skinheads, told them Metzger’s views, the need to create acts of racial violence. He had been there a couple of weeks teaching, and one night, late, three skinheads who had heard him went out on the street. They saw a young Arab-looking man come out of an automobile going into an apartment building. They rushed over to him, punched him in the chest, called him racist names. And it was Mulugeta coming home from his job at Avis to get ready to go to school the next day. He said, “Peace! Peace! Please, no trouble. May I help you?” And while they continued to taunt him, one walked around behind him with a baseball bat tucked down behind his leg and took a full swing and crushed Mulugeta’s skull, and he died that night.

The three skinheads who committed these acts got arrested. They got long prison sentences. I got a call from a family in Ethiopia, the lawyer representing Mulugeta’s family, asking if we would bring a civil suit to try to get some money for that poor family who had lost its breadwinner. The police in Portland were quite helpful to me but said “Look, these three skinheads have no money. You are not going to get anything from them.” And I was about to leave, and one of the officers handed me a handwritten letter. He said, “I found this when I searched the skinheads’ room the night we arrested them, and it might help you.” It was a letter from Metzger to a skinhead group in Portland saying, “When you meet Dave, our organizer, he’ll teach you how we operate.” And he elaborated. And he said, “I hope your group will join the White Aryan Resistance.” Signed, Metzger for a white America. We found out through some police intelligence that Dave had left Metzger. We found him. I talked to him over a period of a couple of weeks, and he agreed to be our witness against Metzger in a civil suit to say that Metzger had encouraged him to teach racial violence, and he had done that to the very skinheads who committed this crime. This young man was very sorry for what he had done. Came from a very troubled family, troubled background, and he was looking for some peace in his life. We brought suit against Metzger, he had money and property, we brought a lawsuit against him. Dave was the star witness. We put on Dave’s testimony and that of others. At the close of the trial, Metzger wanted to make his own closing argument. He was quite a brilliant speaker. He had been on all the talk shows, he had been a political candidate. And he stood in front of that jury and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, don’t hold against me just because my views are unpopular. I was merely exercising my free speech rights.” And he elaborated more, and then finally as he began to speak, he stood very erect in front of the jury, and as he began to talk, I could see Adolph Hitler from those History Channel movies we see. The only thing Metzger didn’t do was give a sig heil salute when he said, “I’m not going to apologize for my views. I believe America is a great nation, and I believe it’s great only because of the contributions of white people.” And he sat down.

I sat for awhile thinking what I might say. Why would a jury want to take this man’s property and money and what he had away when three men were in prison? I knew his First Amendment argument was totally worthless, because the First Amendment doesn’t give you the right to teach violence. And he sent agents out to encourage violence. But some people misconceive that, and I thought the jury might. I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to look at the front row of the courtroom behind Mr. Metzger. That first row there, those three children, they’re his three children. And do you know, not a single one of them had to worry about getting polio because of the Jewish doctor Jonas Salk. And if we lived in Tom Metzger’s America, we wouldn’t have the brilliance of the African American general Colin Powell.” And I mentioned other people of other ethnic and racial backgrounds and told the jury about their contributions to the greatness of this nation. And had this argument been made after September 11th, I would have specifically told about the contributions of Arab Americans to this nation. The great consumer advocate Ralph Nadar, the musician Frank Zappa, the football great Doug Flutie. And I could have gone on and on and on in medicine, science, and law, and other places.

I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the America that Tom Metzger and people like him believe in is an America that never existed. Our nation has been great from its very beginning because of the contributions of all of us. And I think that jury agreed in a unanimous way. Because they returned the largest civil verdict ever returned in the history of the state of Oregon. And I wish Tom Metzger had $12.5 million. But we did take everything he had. All the funds we get go to our clients. And I am proud to say that his young son, Henok, is now a college student in an American university, with his tuition being paid by the White Aryan Resistance and Tom Metzger.

You know as I was flying back to my farm and my family after being away for nearly a year in Oregon on this trial, relaxing for the first time, thinking about what this case meant to me, as I passed over this great nation, the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, the crops and a lot of stock in the fields, and then finally flying over the Appalachian Mountains into Atlanta, I thought to myself, I really believe what I told that jury. I believe that our nation is great because of the contributions of all of us. But why, so late in the history of this country, why can’t we all get along? Why do we have 10,000 hate crimes in America last year? Why do we have so much built-in bias and discrimination? Why are there so many divides along so many lines that separate us in this country? Along lines of class and economics? Along lines of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age, so many? Why are there 350 hate Web sites just one click away from the smallest child? Why are there 600-plus hate groups in America?

Well, we began to try to find answers to those questions. As we went around this nation, we found that there is good news. People all over this country are saying, “We’re better than that.” And they are turning to individuals who are victims of hate crimes and intolerance, and saying, “We feel your pain. We want you to be a part of us.” And then people are organizing in groups small and large to try to build bridges across those divides that separate us in this country. And if we begin to collect the stories about what people are doing in small towns and large towns all over this country, we find them to be very heartening. I was so proud that just recently after this great tragedy, that in the National Cathedral the president of our nation and other leaders invited an Islamic cleric to begin the prayers three days after September 11th. Can you imagine a Japanese cleric, an American Japanese cleric being asked to lead prayers in the National Cathedral after Pearl Harbor? No, we locked up thousands of Japanese in internment camps. So I think maybe we are learning something.

I remember one story from the small town of Billings, Montana. Not many Jewish people live there. A Jewish family gave their son a menorah to be placed out during Hanukkah, and each night he would light a candle. He decided to place his menorah in the window, so people could see it from the street, because he was so proud. And a man saw it who didn’t like it and threw a brick through the window, and it crashed to the floor. And another man heard about it there who became very upset. And in support of that victim, he organized schools, colleges, law enforcement, the newspaper, and businesses to make paper menorahs out of cardboard to place in all windows in every house in Billings facing the streets in support of that victim of a hate crime. And one night when this campaign was underway, this mother took her young son out, drove up one street and down the other, it was late in the evening, so he could see. And he could see all these menorahs backlit from the lights inside. As he looked at them, he was just amazed. He said, “Mom, I didn’t know so many Jewish people lived in Billings!” And she said, “No son, they are our friends.” And therein I think lies the answer. When we build bridges across these divides that separate us, it will be out of friendship and love for people who are different than we are. Whose eyes might have a different shape, whose hair a different texture. Might have a different religion or no religion at all. Might be a different gender, different sexual orientation, whatever. Appreciating the genius in each person and giving that person an equal opportunity.

You know there have been dark days in this country before, and we’ve overcome. I remember one of those in 1963. I was three years out of the University of Alabama Law School. Dr. Martin Luther King was 10 days out of the Birmingham jail, where he had been incarcerated for trying to get people registered to vote. And shortly after he was released, a group of Klansmen placed dynamite in the stairwell of a Baptist church there, and four little Sunday School girls died simply because of the color of their skin. This was 1963. Dr. King was no national hero. There had been no Voting Rights Act of 1965 or Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those were being blocked by powerful and respected leaders in our Congress. But Dr. King had faith then that America would do the right thing. He had faith in those who existed then and you to come. And he went to Washington to express that faith. He stood on the mall with 250,000 people at his feet and millions watching when he expressed that faith. He said, “I have a dream that one day in the red clay hills of Georgia that the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will sit down around the table of brotherhood.”

I don’t know what Dr. King would think today in America. We have taken three steps forward and two steps back. We’ve made some progress. The issues have changed, and in the face of the tragedy that just befell this nation, you know I think that Dr. King would still have faith. His spiritual faith but also his faith in all of us, in the people, to solve our problems. And if he was making that speech today, he might say, “I have a dream that one day in the red clay hills of Georgia (and today he might add in the barrios, on the reservations, in the ghettos, and in the seats of economic and political and judicial power in this nation) that the sons and daughters of former slaves and the sons and daughters of former slave owners (and today he might add, the poor, the powerless, the homeless) and those who hold the keys to the economic and political power of this nation will sit down around the table of personhood and truly learn to love one another.” At a time when Dr. King was with us in that dark hour of our history, when none of you here students was even born, at a time when America had lost its way, strayed so far from some of the principles that the founders of this country set forth, that of liberty and justice for all, Dr. King as he went around, reminded us of another nation at another time in history, a nation that no longer existed in the state it was then, had lost its way. And he told that story. It was 900 B.C. The children of Israel - the Jews that wandered in the desert and other places after being slaves in Egypt - persecuted, they finally built the great city near the present site of Jerusalem. And they built big walls around this town, and those inside prospered. Many had money to buy beautiful lots and build beautiful homes overlooking fertile valleys and fertile fields and vineyards. And others had very profitable stalls in the marketplace, where people from surrounding areas came and brought their goods. And one farmer who came to bring his goods there to sell was troubled by what he saw when he went through those big gates at daylight to bring his goods in. He saw able-bodied men and women begging for food. And upon inquiry he found that, well, if you didn’t belong to the right group, you didn’t get a good job or maybe a job at all. And then he went into the marketplace and he found grumbling there also among the people who came by his stall, and they said, “You know, if you don’t belong to the right group, sometimes you get arrested for what other people don’t. And sometimes the courts hand down uneven sentences.” And this bothered this farmer, because he wanted these people to be successful. He was a man of some means and reputation, so he asked for an audience with the leaders. You know this farmer. He was the prophet Amos in the Old Testament. And he stood before the leaders and he said, “You know, you people have a good thing here. Don’t blow it. Unless you’re fair to all the people, unless all people have an equal opportunity, then you’re not going to keep what you have here to pass down to future generations.” And he told them the words that Dr. King repeated from him so often as he spoke to us. He said, “Don’t be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters. And righteousness like a mighty stream.”

America is certainly challenged now as never before. We have a very delicate situation to handle, externally and internally, in this country and elsewhere, to seek justice against those who would harm innocent people, but to show the world that we are a just nation also. Not an easy thing to do. In this nation we have to make sure that those among us who are in many ways on the other side of that divide from some of us, those who are victims of hate crimes because of their sexual orientation, or their gender, or maybe now because they resemble the terrorists, that they too understand that we as Americans will not be satisfied until justice does roll down like waters. And I am sure that each of you now and in the future as you go out into this world, especially with the tremendous moral backing that you get from going to this great university, that you will be a part of turning this very, very, dark tragedy into one of America’s brightest hours. Thank you so much.