SPLC Klan cases to be featured in Investigation Discovery series
A new, three-part series on the Investigation Discovery network – “Hate in America” – will take an in-depth look at the SPLC’s fight against violent extremists.
The first episode, premiering at 8 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday, Feb. 29, explores some of the SPLC’s most riveting court cases, including the Michael Donald lawsuit that shut down the United Klans of America.
In 1981, Donald, 19, was abducted on the streets of Mobile, Alabama, by Klansmen who cut his throat and hung his body from a tree in a residential neighborhood. Using an innovative legal strategy, SPLC founder Morris Dees proved in court that a Klan conspiracy was behind the murder and won a historic $7 million verdict against the United Klans on behalf of Donald’s mother.
The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls, during the civil rights movement.
The first episode of “Hate in America” also will delve into the SPLC’s harrowing case against the former Klan leader Glenn Miller, who formed a large Klan militia in North Carolina that obtained an arsenal of lethal weapons from sympathizers in the military. The suit shut down Miller’s operation, and he was sent to prison after plotting to assassinate Dees. The notorious neo-Nazi made headlines in 2014 when he murdered three people at Jewish facilities in Kansas.
The two final episodes of “Hate in America” will air later in 2016 on dates to be determined. They will examine the rise of lone-wolf terrorists, including the white supremacist who killed nine African Americans in Charleston last summer, and an attempt by racists to start a white supremacist enclave in Montana.
The series is hosted by Emmy Award-winning journalist Tony Harris.
It will be available online at DiscoveryGO and on ID’s website starting March 1.
