Civil rights attorney Morris S. Dees, Jr. (born 1936) used the rule of law to fight against hate groups in the United States.

In the quarter of a century following the death of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, there was an alarming rise in the number of hate groups and hate crimes in America. By 1994 it was estimated that there were over 250 hate groups across the United States, including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, and Christian Identity Movement, to name only a few of the most violent. Combatting these groups effectively was extremely difficult, since the very freedoms cherished in U.S. democracy, including and especially freedom of speech, allow bigots to spread their hateful ideas with little fear of prosecution by authorities.

One man made a stand against all of that. Morris S. Dees, Jr., a native of the deep South, led...