PRESS RELEASE:  Contact: Kirk D. Lyons 828-669-5189
11 SEPTEMBER 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Leftwing "Civil Rights" Front Organization Names SLRC as
"Neo-Confederate" Group

Black Mountain, NC - The Board of Directors take strong exception to the defamatory attack on the Southern Legal Resource Center and its Chief Trial Counsel Kirk D. Lyons, and its Chairman of the Board of Advisors, H.K. Edgerton by the so called "Southern Poverty Law Center," and its "Chief Trial Counsel" Morris Seligman Dees.

The SLRC is branded a "Neo Confederate" organization, and Lyons branded a "white supremacist" in a new report on the growing Southern Civil Rights Movement issued yesterday by the Center. Edgerton is maligned as a "front" or "dupe" of the SLRC.

Dees until now has studiously avoided branding the SLRC as extremist, but has a long track record of defaming Lyons as a "white supremacist," a term Lyons has always vehemently denied.  "I have said since my entry into public life that I am a Christian, and an unreconstructed Southerner from Texas - period." Lyons stated.  "Apparently anything to the right of Karl Marx is a "right wing extremist in Dees eyes - we are in good company." Lyons added.

"It is obvious that Dees and the SPLC is bigoted against anything Confederate," said SLRC Executive Director Dr. Neill H. Payne. "Not only is his report littered with falsehood, one cannot escape the sub text of bitter hatred against anything Southern in the report," Payne added.

Kirk D. Lyons, Chief Trial Counsel of the SLRC and a victim of Dees venom would say only, "I am not surprised that a suborner of perjury like Dees with $100 million ill-gotten dollars in the bank would eventually turn his poison on an effective organization like ours.  One wonders why Dees took so long getting around to us," Lyons added.

H.K. Edgerton would not dignify Dees assertions with a response.  "Dees is the Father of Liars," was Edgerton's only comment.

The SLRC considers the report on the SLRC, Lyons and other Southern groups patently defamatory, written with knowing knowing falsity, or reckless indifference of the truth or falsity of the information.

"Even though the report is only the opinion of Dees and his ilk, the dissemination of this form of hate-speech can have dire consequences for many innocent people." stated Director Payne.  "This form of bigotry and intolerance exhibited by Dees and his 'Poverty Palace' should be condemned by every fair-minded American," Payne concluded.

The SLRC is non-profit, tax exempt, South Carolina public law firm that specializes in cases involving Southern Heritage violations.

Please visit the Southern Legal Resource Center's web site at http://www.slrc-csa.org We encourage those who support us to sign a monthly pledge so that our work may continue. You can also now contribute online through paypal by following this link https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=slrc%40slrc-csa.org.

If anyone has received this who does not wish to be on our distribution list, please let us know. Our address is SLRC, P.O. Box 1235, Black Mountain, NC 28711. Phone: 828-669-5189 Dr. Payne and Atty. Lyons SCV members, I.N. Giffen,758, Black Mountain, NC