A native of Alabama, Dees co-founded the Southern Poverty Law Center in 1971 with Joseph Levin and Julian Bond. The privately funded organization in Montgomery, Alabama, is known for its years of legal victories against white supremacist groups, monitoring of activities by "hate groups," and educational programs that promote tolerance. This past summer Dees won a $37.8 million jury verdict against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and its leaders for the arson of an African-American church in South Carolina.
In 1969 at the age of 31, Dees who had previously been active in the civil rights movement, left his successful publishing business and took up civil rights law full-time. Among his many honors is the Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from Trial Lawyers for Justice and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association.
Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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