In 1988, racist Skinheads beat an Ethiopian graduate student to death with a baseball bat. Mulugeta Seraw was murdered by recruits of neo-Nazi leader Tom Metzger, founder of White Aryan Resistance (WAR), who faced a Center civil suit and a $12.5 million judgment.
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In the early morning hours of June 26, 2011, a black man was attacked in the parking lot of a Jackson, Miss., motel and then fatally run over by a truck. The Southern Poverty Law Center joined Mississippi attorney Winston J. Thompson III, in filing a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the man’s family. The civil lawsuit accused seven white teenagers of deliberately setting out to harass a black person.
The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Imperial Klans of America (IKA) and four Klansmen, saying several members were on a recruiting mission for the group in July 2006 when they savagely beat a teenage boy at a county fair in Kentucky. A jury found IKA leader Ron Edwards and two other members responsible for the attack and awarded $2.5 million to the teen. The SPLC moved to seize Edwards’ interest in the IKA headquarters to satisfy the judgment.
This is a lawsuit against four young white men who terrorized, humiliated and beat a mentally retarded African-American man, dumped his unconscious body on the side of a dark country road and left him for dead. In 2007, a jury awarded a $9 million verdict to help the family pay for the care the victim will need for the rest of his life.
After a Texas rancher invited the vigilante border patrol group Ranch Rescue to guard his property in 2003, two Salvadorans crossing the U.S. border were terrorized and assaulted by members of the group. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Salvadorans, obtaining more than $1 million in a settlement and judgments, including the title to Ranch Rescue’s Arizona headquarters.
The Imperial Wizard of one of the most aggressive Klan groups in the country detained and terrorized two journalists covering a story about a planned Klan rally. The Center sued, winning a $120,000 judgment, and investigating criminal charges that sent the Klan leader to prison.
Victoria and Jason Keenan were chased and shot at by members of the Aryan Nations in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Held at gunpoint, the mother and son feared for their lives. The Center sued and obtained a $6.3 million jury verdict; Aryan Nations was forced to turn its compound over to the victims it had terrorized.
In 1988, a white fair housing advocate and her daughter were harassed and threatened over the internet by Klansmen and neo-Nazis. After they filed complaints with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Center achieved justice against the hate groups.
On a summer evening in 1995, members of the Christian Knights of the KKK set a fire completely destroying a 100-year-old black Baptist church in South Carolina. The Center sued the Klan on the church's behalf, winning the largest judgment ever awarded against a hate group.
Fearful that his white supremacist group would be sued over the murder of a black sailor, the leader of the Church of the Creator sold the group's property to the late neo-Nazi leader William Pierce. The Center sued and obtained a $1 million judgment against the COTC and a $85,000 judgment against Pierce.
