WASHINGTON, July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Morris Dees, founder of the civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), will address a luncheon newsmaker this Friday at the National Press Club. Dees will analyze the upsurge in domestic terrorism since the election of President Obama and discuss SPLC's release that day of new evidence confirming the presence of white supremacists in the military.

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Dees pioneered the strategy of holding hate groups responsible for violent acts by their members, filing civil suits that bankrupted almost a dozen major white supremacist organizations. A leader in the fields of civil rights and civil liberties litigation for more than 40 years, he most recently was chief trial counsel in an SPLC case that won a $2.5 million from a Kentucky Klan group whose members severely beat a 16-year-old Latino youth. His award-winning work has earned him numerous plaudits, but also resulted in a series of attempts on his life and those of his colleagues.

Since election of the U.S.' first African-American president, the nation has experienced a rash of violence from the racist right, including the neo-Nazi attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the murder of six law enforcement officers. Authorities have interrupted several assassination plots and seized components of a "dirty bomb" being built by a man reportedly upset about Obama's election.

The luncheon begins at 12:30 p.m. Reserve at (202) 662-7501 or reservations@press.org . Cost of luncheon is $17 for National Press Club members, $28 for their guests and $35 for the general public. Full tables, seating 8 to 10 people each, are also available for reservation.

SOURCE National Press Club

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