Statement by SPLC President Richard Cohen on League of the South and Council of Conservative Citizens Rally at SPLC Office

May 9, 2014

We respect the First Amendment rights of these organizations to speak their minds – even if they don’t respect the constitutional rights of millions of Americans who don’t look like them or believe what they believe.

In fact, we’re glad they speak publicly, because it reveals who they really are: unrepentant racists and bigots. They’re here today to protest our case seeking justice for a gay man. His name is Paul Hard. He was married in Massachusetts in 2011, and his husband, David, was killed in a car wreck in Prattville just three months later. In his will, David left everything to Paul, just like most spouses do. But because Alabama refuses to recognize Paul and David’s marriage, Paul won’t be allowed to collect his share of damages from a pending wrongful death suit.

Let me tell you a little about the groups here today.

The League of the South is an organization whose main objective, as stated clearly on its website, is to promote the second secession of Southern states from the United States. Let’s take a look at the words of Michael Hill, the group’s president. He wrote an essay two years ago that says:

- White people are “endowed with a God-ordained superiority.”- Freeing the slaves was “a disaster for whites and blacks alike.” - Black people “have never created anything approximating a civilization.”- It’s a “monumental lie” that all men are created equal.

He’s a man who believes slavery is biblically ordained, and that the Southern states should be a separate country ruled by white people.

I could go on. But let’s turn to the Council of Conservative Citizens.

This group was formed from the remnants of the old White Citizens Councils, the white supremacist groups that sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s to fight school desegregation in the South.

On its website, it has published pictures comparing Michael Jackson to an ape and referred to black people as a “retrograde species of humanity.” It’s a group that once named former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox, a white supremacist who wielded an ax to keep black people out of his restaurant, its “Patriot of the Century.”

So yes, let these groups speak freely. We’re confident that the vast majority of Americans will reject their vile message.

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