Southern Poverty Law Center leader on hate crimes
Not long after it launched in 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center made a name for itself as a standard-bearer in the fight for civil rights.
Since then, the Montgomery, Ala.-based nonprofit has filed dozens of lawsuits over the years targeting groups that include law enforcement and government officials. It’s helped dismantle a host of Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups around the country by winning millions on behalf of its clients in court cases against them, sending a few into bankruptcy.
The Los Angeles Times sat down with Richard Cohen, a lawyer who was named president and chief executive officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2003, discussing topics including Trump, hate crimes and the group’s mission in the coming years. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Donations to your organization have shot up since the election. Why?
A: Mr. Trump ran a campaign marked by racism, xenophobia, crude racial stereotypes and anti-Semitic imagery. And after he was elected, many white supremacists were celebrating. Usually, white supremacists just sit out elections and think that political parties are irredeemably corrupt. The combination of his racist campaign and the attacks on political correctness told many people that the gloves are off and they could act, unfortunately, with their worst instincts.
The day after the election, we put up a reporting form about hate incidents on our website, and within 10 days we had collected almost 900 incidents. It told us the fault lines where our country has historically been weak have been opened again. It’s going to take the collective efforts of all of us to close them.
Q: Were those fault lines opened with Obama?
A: To some degree after President Obama was elected, white supremacists went crazy. We saw an outbreak of hate crimes that coincided with Mr. Obama’s election. But not to this extent.
I think what’s happened now is much, much worse.
Q: Many Trump voters are also against racism and hate groups.
A: I think there are a lot of people who flocked to Trump’s candidacy because they felt as if they were strangers in their own land with the changing demographics in our country, the dislocations caused by globalization, and the rise of LGBTQ rights. All of those things contributed to a sense for many people, particularly white working-class people, of alienation.
Saying that is a far cry from painting them all as a “deplorables.”
Q: On May 26, a white supremacist killed two men and injured a third when they defended a pair of teenage girls, one a Muslim wearing a hijab, on a Portland, Ore., train, according to police. Are more people holding white supremacist views?
A: There’s a virus in our country. It’s a virus called hate.
When we look at the number of hate groups, we’ve seen an increase in the past 15 years. When we look at people engaged in online hate, like people who are registered users of something like [the white supremacist website] Stormfront, you’ll see an increase.
This fellow in Portland, he rants and raves. We’re looking at somebody who was bitter, resentful, racist. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like that.