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Hitting the Klan: Civilly

NCJ Number
115462
Journal
ABA (American Bar Association) Journal Dated: (February (1989) Pages: 19
Author(s)
M Curriden
Date Published
1989
Length
1 page
Annotation
Alabama civil rights lawyer Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been successful in gaining civil awards in suits against the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) for damages inflicted by the Klan.
Abstract
On October 25, 1988, 53 black plaintiffs successfully sued the Southern White Knights of the KKK and two of its leaders. A jury awarded the plaintiffs $950,400 for the KKK-initiated violence during the 'Brotherhood March' in Forsyth County, Ga., on January 17, 1987. This is the second such judgment against the Klan in 2 years. In the first case, an all-white jury ruled against the Alabama-based United Klans of America, awarding $7 million to the mother of a 19-year-old black Mobile man strangled and hanged. Two Klansmen were convicted in the case. The awards have been executed by garnishing the wages of individual defendants and taking KKK assets. Dees has one more class-action suit pending against the KKK. He expects to see the Invisible Empire of the Alabama KKK in U.S. District Court in Birmingham this summer. Dees' actions have placed him on at least one assassination list.