In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys worked to force Alabama to provide adequate care to the thousands of mentally ill and mentally retarded persons committed to state institutions.

SPLC attorneys then turned their attention to the abysmal services offered emotionally disturbed children in foster care. R.C. v. Fuller (1988) led to a breakthrough court agreement, established with help from mental health law experts at the Bazelon Center in Washington, D.C.

In Harris v. James, the Southern Poverty Law Center challenged Alabama's failure to provide Medicaid recipients with medically necessary transportation as mandated by federal law.

Many SPLC clients were dialysis patients who had to go without food to pay for transportation to regularly scheduled treatments. Some were even forced to miss appointments altogether.

In 1995, a federal judge ordered the state to implement a new transportation assistance program. Since then, more than 40,000 Medicaid recipients have been helped.