Founder and Chief Counsel Morris S. Dees

   Founder  and  leader  Morris  Seligman Dees has been central to SPLC's
   success from 1971 to the present day. The son of an Alabama farmer (b.
   December  16,  1936, in Shorter, Alabama), Dees has been energetic and
   enterprising from an early age. Ascribing his best lessons in sales to
   his  boyhood  exposure  to  Baptist preachers ("I learned everything I
   know about hustling from the Baptist Church," Dees has said. "Spending
   Sundays  on  those  hard  benches  listening  to  the  preacher  pitch
   salvation   --  why,  it  was  like  getting  a  Ph.D.  in  selling"),
   
   http://www.americanpatrol.com/SPLC/ChurchofMorrisDees001100.html

   Dees  amassed  a  fortune  from  direct  marketing  while still at the
   University  of  Alabama law school. The specifics on Dees's embrace of
   left-liberal   politics   and   subsequent  decision  to  advance  the
   African-American  civil  rights  movement  through SPLC are uncertain;
   Dees  himself  has cast skepticism on the significance of an oft-cited
   epiphany he earlier claimed to have experienced in 1969.

   http://www.splcenter.org/center/history/dees.jsp

   http://www.superlawyers.com/alabama/article/QandA-Morris-Dees/21f62c22-a996-4e33-87c9-10a6646468f6.html

   Whatever psychological, sociological, or other motives inspired Dees's
   alleged  conversion, his prodigious abilities in selling and promoting
   enabled  him  to  make  the  SPLC  a going concern -- the policies and
   assets of which he seems to firmly control through well-chosen proxies
   --  from  its  foundation. While heading SPLC and actively leading its
   legal  work  in  the  1970s  and  `80s,  Dees also raised millions for
   Democratic  presidential candidates George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Ted
   Kennedy,  and  Gary Hart, sometimes taking mailing lists of Democratic
   prospects in payment for his services.

   Morris  Dees's  talents  and character have played the key role in the
   development  of  the  Center  from  1) a civil-rights law firm to 2) a
   public  relations-savvy  crusader  against  the Klan to 3) its present
   incarnation as a watchdog whose bark and bite threaten free discussion
   of  America's future as a nation grappling with racial and immigration
   problems.  Dees's  ability  to enlist talent and to attract money from
   the radical fringe, coupled with his considerable business skills, has
   resulted in an organization that effectively advances a leftist agenda
   utilizing  state  of the art fundraising and publicity methods. Nearly
   as  decisive  has  been his stated desire for a "blend of exciting [as
   well  as]  socially  significant cases," which surely played a role in
   the  de-emphasizing of the humdrum affirmative action suits the Center
   began with.

   SPLC's  often  criticized  lack of scruples in its legal tactics (Dees
   himself   was   arrested   for   suborning   perjury  in  the  1970s);

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Little

   in  smearing  and  spying  on  its  opponents;  and  above  all in its
   fundraising  techniques,  likely  reflect  traits of its founder, whom
   Millard   Farmer,   a  former  SPLC  attorney,  likened  to  notorious
   televangelists  Jim  and Tammy Bakker, with the proviso that he wished
   not to insult the Bakkers by the comparison.

   http://www.americanpatrol.com/SPLC/ChurchofMorrisDees001100.html

   Dees  has  weathered numerous attacks from left and right accusing him
   of  opportunism, greed, and various sexual quirks (alleged by a former
   wife  during  divorce  proceedings). Possibly his embrace of the civil
   rights  agenda  and  left-liberal  politics  is  the  result of social
   resentments  over  his  allegedly  humble  beginnings  as the son of a
   sharecropper. Perhaps his behavior and motives are better explained by
   a craving to be famous, like his hero, early twentieth century radical
   lawyer  Clarence  Darrow,  a  desire  colored  by  what  seems to be a
   considerable personal vanity.

   http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2333

   http://www.splcenter.org/center/history/dees.jsp

   Whatever  the  determinants of his character and motives, whatever his
   private  peccadilloes, Dees (and more important his support base) have
   so far proved unflappable in the face of personal attacks.