We know little about the motives of the gunman who opened fire yesterday in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Many of us will monitor the news during the day, hoping to learn more about what the shooter thought he was doing, sure to hear more about the heroism and horror inside the building.
Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, was recognized Tuesday for a legal career dedicated to seeking justice and equality for all when the American Bar Association presented him with the ABA Medal – the organization’s highest award.
Message boards and forums across the racist radical right have erupted in the days following Wade Michael Page’s deadly rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, with some racists calling the skinhead gunman “brother,” commending his actions on behalf of the white man and excoriating those who have tried to distance themselves from the racist cause.
When 11-year-old J.B. was caught with a cell phone in class, the student received a five-day suspension. The school district in Okaloosa County, Fla., meted out the harsh punishment because the incident was considered “inappropriate behavior.”
The man who allegedly murdered six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee yesterday, identified in media reports as Wade Michael Page, was a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.
Twelve years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center stopped participating in the Montgomery, Ala., United Way campaign because the organization chose to fund the Boy Scouts of America despite its policy of excluding LGBT people from its ranks.
A homeless U.S. Army veteran sought to attend federally funded job training courses at a ministry in North Carolina but discovered she wasn't allowed to attend courses offered to men. Instead, she was offered training in such things as knitting, art therapy and yoga. The SPLC filed a discrimination complaint of behalf of her and other female veterans.
Foreign guestworkers are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs and held virtually captive by employers. Now, new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations that will help protect guestworkers from exploitation as well as protect job opportunities for U.S. workers are under attack by some federal lawmakers.
The face of America is changing. In 40 years, the United States will become a minority-majority nation – a remarkable milestone for a country that already boasts one of the most religiously, ethnically and racially diverse societies in the world.
Ten years ago today, William Luther Pierce, the founder and leader of what for three decades was the most important hate group in America, died unexpectedly. Now, a decade after Pierce’s death, the National Alliance, which was once revered on the international radical right as a serious and effective organization, is a shadow of its former self — a joke on the larger neo-Nazi scene that is led by a man who has lost the respect of his former followers.
