Since 1979, the Southern Poverty Law Center has shut down some of the nation's largest white supremacist organizations by helping victims of racist violence sue for monetary damages. While the groups usually don't have much money, judgments won by SPLC have effectively put them out of business. These courtroom victories were funded entirely by SPLC supporters; the Southern Poverty Law Center accepts no legal fees from its clients.

The Decatur case: A 10-year legal battle
In 1979, over 100 members of the Invisible Empire Klan, armed with bats, ax handles and guns, clashed with a group of peaceful civil rights marchers in Decatur, Alabama.

Though the FBI investigated and could not find enough evidence of a conspiracy to charge the Klansmen, SPLC filed a civil suit against the Invisible Empire and numerous Klansmen, Brown v. Invisible Empire of the KKK. SPLC investigators uncovered evidence that convinced the FBI to reopen the case, and nine Klansmen were eventually convicted of criminal charges.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's civil suit was finally resolved in 1990. The settlement required Klansmen to pay damages, perform community service, and refrain from white supremacist activity.

In a unique addition, the Klansmen were also required to attend a course on race relations and prejudice, taught by the leaders of the civil rights group they attacked back in 1979.

Halting paramilitary training
SPLC lawsuits in 1982 and 1984 ended Klan paramilitary activity in Texas and Alabama. Klan groups in these states were training paramilitary forces in the use of grenades, explosives, weapons, techniques of ambush and hand-to-hand combat, all in preparation for what they believed was an impending "race war."

	SPLC litigation protected Vietnamese fisherman against Klan violence. (John Van Beekum)

Protecting Vietnamese Fishermen From the Klan
In 1981, Texas Klansman tried to destroy Vietnamese-Americans' fishing businesses by burning their boats and threatening their lives. Armed Klansmen cruised Galveston Bay and practiced guerrilla tactics at secret paramilitary camps.

SPLC attorneys filed a lawsuit, Association of Vietnamese Fishermen v. Knights of the KKK, that halted the Klan's terror campaign and shut down its paramilitary training bases.

Attack on Forsyth County marchers
On the anniversary of Dr. King's birth in 1987, as an interracial group marched in all-white Forsyth County, Ga., Klansmen throwing rocks and bottles forced the group back.

SPLC attorneys sued to vindicate the marchers' rights in McKinney v. Southern White Knights. In October 1988, a federal jury assessed nearly $1 million in damages against two Klan organizations and 11 followers responsible for the attack.

To ensure the Klan felt the financial pressure of the verdict, SPLC investigators traced the assets of the major Klan defendant, the Invisible Empire, over a five-year period. In 1994, the Invisible Empire was forced to pay damages and disband. The group's office equipment was given to the NAACP.

Taking on the White Aryan Resistance
In 1988, Tom and John Metzger sent their best White Aryan Resistance (WAR) recruiter to organize a Portland Skinhead gang. After being trained in WAR's methods, the gang killed an Ethiopian student. Tom Metzger praised the Skinheads for doing their "civic duty."

SPLC attorneys filed a civil suit, Berhanu v. Metzger, asserting the Metzgers and WAR were as responsible for the killing as the Portland Skinheads. In October 1990, a jury agreed and awarded $12.5 million in damages to the family of the victim, Mulugeta Seraw.

In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Metzger's appeal, allowing SPLC attorneys to begin distributing funds from the sale of WAR's assets. The principal beneficiary is Seraw's son, Henok, who receives monthly payments from WAR's bank account.

The Michael Donald lynching case
Nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was on his way to the store in 1981 when two members of the United Klans of America abducted him, beat him, cut his throat and hung his body from a tree on a residential street in Mobile, Ala. The two Klansmen who carried out the ritualistic killing were eventually arrested and convicted.

Convinced the Klan itself should be held responsible, SPLC attorneys filed a civil suit on behalf of Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald v. United Klans. In 1987, the Center won an historic $7 million verdict against the United Klans and the Klansmen who had been involved in the lynching.

The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had beaten the Freedom Riders, murdered civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, and bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. The group was forced to turn over its headquarters to Beulah Mae Donald, and two additional Klansmen were convicted of criminal charges.

	Harold Mansfield (special)

The Harold Mansfield Case
On May 17, 1991, a member of a white supremacist organization called the Church of the Creator murdered Harold Mansfield, a black sailor who served in the Gulf War. After SPLC investigators documented the group's violent history, the Center sued and obtained a $1 million default judgment against the so-called "Church" in Mansfield v. Church of the Creator.

Prior to the conclusion of the case, the Church transferred ownership of its headquarters to late neo-Nazi leader William Pierce to keep it from falling into the hands of Mansfield's heirs. Until his death in 2002, Pierce headed the National Alliance. (He also authored The Turner Diaries, a fictional work that has inspired terrorists, including Timothy McVeigh.)

In 1995, SPLC attorneys filed Mansfield v. Pierce, suing Pierce for his role in the fraudulent scheme, and won an $85,000 judgment.

Making the Klan pay
A South Carolina jury awarded the largest judgment ever against a hate group in Macedonia Baptist Church v. Christian Knights of the KKK (1998). The Christian Knights of the KKK, its state leader, and four other Klansmen were ordered to pay $37.8 million, later reduced by a judge to $21.5 million, for their conspiracy to burn a black church.

	Jessie Young testifies about a Klan warning tacked to the door of the Macedonia Baptist Church before it burned down. (Keith Gedamke/The Item)

The Southern Poverty Law Center brought the case on behalf of Macedonia Baptist Church, one of several rural black churches burned by arsonists in the mid-1990s. The judgment forced the Klan to give up its headquarters. When the property was sold, the deed included a restriction that the land never be used for white supremacist activities.

The Christian Knights were transformed from one of the most active Klan groups in the nation to a defunct organization.

Closing the Aryan Nations compound
In July 1998, security guards at the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho shot at Victoria Keenan and her son after their car backfired nearby. SPLC filed Keenan v. Aryan Nations, seeking justice on their behalf. After a weeklong trial, a jury ruled that leader Richard Butler and his organization were grossly negligent in selecting and supervising the guards.

In September 2000, SPLC won a $6.3 million jury verdict against the Aryan Nations and Butler. The judgment forced Butler to give up the 20-acre compound that had served for decades as the home of the nation's most violent white supremacists.

The Keenans sold the property and the acreage became a community "peace park."