It’s true. I live in South Florida but it is now more like the State of New Jersey where I was born, grew up, worked and lived until my retirement.  And, I stick by the title of this piece.  I live in the South but do not know what “South” is. Morris Dees has helped me understand a lot more history of the southern part of the U.S. than all the schooling and living I have ever had.

I am reading a book by Morris Seligman Dees, A Lawyer’s Story, about his life as a lawyer and the man chiefly responsible for the creation of the Southern Poverty Law Center.  I have just gotten to the part of his life where he set out to become a lawyer and was enrolled in the University of Alabama despite his background and wish to become a farmer.  His family had no land of its own and always worked for others.  They had pride and were different from most of the white south from the early 1930’s to the end of legal segregation where I left off in this story.  His family, consisting of his father, mother and sister was different from his uncle Lucien who was a flagrant segregationist and violently anti equality for blacks. Morris Dees (his middle name ‘Seligman’ was given him by his father who admired a Jewish friend) grew up among, worked with and knew black people as people and sorted out the unequal rules of southern living. 

Poor whites (like the Dees) were different from White Trash which need not be explained.  Although poor they felt equal to the rich (their houses might be falling down and they were in debt) with whom Morris grew up with too. He knew, through his father’s connections the politicians and movers in the Alabama of his time.  He knew Big Jim Folsom and George Wallace and watched the arrival of black children in schools and in the college he was attending.  He really did not go to school with any person who was not white.  But, he knew the system was wrong and worked to change it.

The book starts off with his first big cases against the Ku Klux Klan and how hard it was and how hard he worked to get a conviction that would begin a career representing the poor, the black and the emigrant – and winning.

For years now I have been reading about the Southern Poverty Law Center, have been supporting it with contributions and receive a marvelous little extra publication that sums up the work from time to time about the achievements of the Center.  This publication is meant for schools and I wish I had had it when I taught Social Studies.  It lists several pages of Hate, Nazi, Survivalist, Segregationist and White Supremacist groups that are on-going in every State of this Union.  It is a frightening picture and Mr. Dees and his staff must be commended and supported vigorously.  Read his book.  Learn more about America.

America is not united.  It has many different cultures un-amalgamated and working against what you and I believe in.  It is my hope that this election will achieve what we all have been taught America stands for – equality and opportunity for all.