{"id":368,"date":"2026-06-10T08:10:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=368"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:10:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T08:10:55","slug":"why-the-southern-poverty-law-center-should-be-called-the-plc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=368","title":{"rendered":"Why the Southern Poverty Law Center Should Be Called the \u2018$PLC\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-361\" height=\"707\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/be46ee44c1dda24aefecd8cb13d80e52.jpg\" width=\"456\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/be46ee44c1dda24aefecd8cb13d80e52.jpg 456w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/be46ee44c1dda24aefecd8cb13d80e52-193x300.jpg 193w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 456px) 100vw, 456px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Black people, POCs, now majority of $PLC board<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We at VDARE always followed the lead of our\u00a0old friend Paul Craig Roberts\u00a0in believing that the bank fraud legislation that Congress cooked up in 1989\u201390, supposedly because of the War on Drugs and subsequently enhanced during the War on Terror, is a major infringement of liberty and a big step toward an American police state.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=359\">The Potemkin Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So it was actually with (somewhat) mixed feelings I heard the news that our tormentors at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) were being indicted for<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Six counts of wire fraud (18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1343)<\/li>\n<li>Four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank (18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1014)<\/li>\n<li>One count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering (18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1956(h))<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(<em>Not<\/em>\u00a0primarily for paying monies to questionable groups, as often misrepresented, including, alarmingly, by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche\u00a0at the DOJ Press Conference.)<\/p>\n<p>These charges will be extremely difficult to defeat, as chillingly laid out in the early part of\u00a0\u201cNotes on a Non-Profit Indicted for Bank Fraud\u201d<strong>\u00a0(<\/strong><em>Bits about Money, <\/em>May 2026).<\/p>\n<p>There is also the intriguing question of discovery. As Lydia Brimelow says in\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s All Happening For The SPLC\u201d:<\/p>\n<p>Discovery will be a bear for them (I know!). And it could find evidence of tortious interference.<\/p>\n<p>Tortious interference is when A and B have a contractual relationship, and C comes along and blows it up, causing damage. Like, to choose an example at random, if VDARE had a conference scheduled at the Cheyenne Mountain Lodge in Colorado Springs, CO, with deposits fully paid up and tickets sold, and the SPLC or their minions intentionally disrupted that conference, causing the lodge to pay out liquidated damages and VDARE to lose its conference. If that happened, the SPLC could be prosecuted for tortious interference.<\/p>\n<p>Despite these exciting developments, I think it important to remember the first evidence that persuaded some alert members of the general public (its victims and, apparently, some of its employees already knew) that the SPLC was morally depraved. This was the organization\u2019s extremely peculiar handling of its finances\u2014specifically the obsessive squirreling away of a remarkable money mountain.<\/p>\n<p>For three years, in 2009, 2010, and 2011, I posted on VDARE exhaustive analyses of the financial reports and Form 990s of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which for obvious reasons I lovingly nicknamed the $PLC. (Form 990 is an extremely intrusive questionnaire that tax-exempt charities (\u201c501(c)(3)s\u201d) have to submit to the federal government.)<\/p>\n<p>These articles were:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\u201cThe Good News: SPLC Loses $50 Million. Bad News: $PLC Can Afford It\u201d\u00a0(April 8, 2009)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWill the Southern Poverty Law (and Investing) Center Return Its Madoff Money?\u201d\u00a0(May 20, 2010)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIs the Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) the Next Financial Bubble?\u201d\u00a0(June 1, 2011)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I followed up in 2017 with a summary and partial update:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\u201cSouthern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) Handling Its Loot Even More Strangely\u201d<br\/>\n(August 31, 2017)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In this article, for convenience\u2019s sake, I will refer to each of the articles listed here below by number.<\/p>\n<p>The salient fact that emerged from these inspections: the Southern Poverty Law Center was extremely wealthy. Even in the year ending October 31, 2008, dealt with in no. 1, some $32.4 million was raised from the public and combined assets totaled $191.8 million.<\/p>\n<p>A peculiar feature was a $156.2 million \u201cendowment fund.\u201d As I discussed in no. 1, almost all of this was (and is) not an endowment fund in the legal sense usually meant in the charity world, with only limited and specific disbursements allowed. Instead, the pool was entirely at the discretion of the $PLC management, who had chosen to separate it from the operating business for unpersuasive reasons.<\/p>\n<p>The intervening years have been kind to the $PLC. The latest reports, for the year ending October 31, 2024, show \u201cContributions\u201d of $129.1 million and \u201cTotal Assets\u201d of $829.2 million, including \u201cEndowment Assets\u201d of $738.4 million.<\/p>\n<p>I noted in no. 1 that, even in the financially stressful year of 2008, the $PLC had managed to squirrel away another $4 million from operating revenue into its \u201cendowment fund\u201d\u201412.3 cents of every dollar contributed. Also, it had committed to pay $8.3 million to \u201climited partnerships and LLCs\u201d\u2014apparently held in the \u201cendowment fund\u201d\u2014i.e., <em>more than the $8 million it spent on \u201cLegal Services\u201d in 2008!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This by a \u201dLaw Center\u201d mainly famous at the time for politically motivated lawfare.<\/p>\n<p>No donations were made to help any other leftist 501(c)(3), although many were hard hit that year.<\/p>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-362\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-362\" height=\"416\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c943df73df53182154cbc13eb8078296-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>The \u201cPoverty Palace\u201d\u2014the SPLC\u2019s purpose-built HQ in Montgomery, AL.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Of course, several writers whom I cite in no. 1 had already been repelled by the $PLC\u2019s money-grubbing. My favorite is Joan Wypijewski\u2019s scathing advice to her liberal readers in\u00a0<em>The Nation<\/em>: (\u201cYou Can\u2019t Get There From Here,<em>\u201d\u00a0<\/em>February 26, 2001):<\/p>\n<p>What is the Poverty Law Center doing . . . ? Mainly making money . . . the center doesn\u2019t devote all of its resources to any kind of fight. . . . A few years ago the American Institute of Philanthropy gave the SPLC an F for \u201cexcessive\u201d reserves. [VDARE.com note: <em>as it still does in its December 2008 Rating Guide<\/em>] So readers, rip up those pledges to the Southern Poverty Law Center.<\/p>\n<p>(Per Grok, the SPLC still got an F in 2025.)<\/p>\n<p>An extraordinary aspect of the $PLC\u2019s squirreling away of assets: the extreme aggressiveness with which the portfolio is managed.<\/p>\n<p>When I looked at their accounts for the year ending October 31, 2009, discussed in no. 2, I fully expected to find they had sustained losses in the\u00a0Madoff Ponzi fraud, which collapsed in December 2008. Many charities and endowments did, because the Madoff marketing pitch, extremely stable but adequate returns with a long track record, had great attractions for conservative fiduciaries.<\/p>\n<p>But there were no losses. For the $PLC, what was jokingly called the \u201cJewish T-Bill\u201d was apparently not what they were looking for.<\/p>\n<p>This was vividly illustrated in the accounts for that year. For the first time, the $PLC disclosed in its 990 that it had an offshore bank account in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.<\/p>\n<p>Why a tax-exempt entity like the $PLC needs a bank relationship in a tax haven is a mystery. The $PLC is, after all, tax-exempt. And even quite small hedge fund groups have mirror on- and off-shore funds that offer the same strategy. Any suggestion that it was necessary to go offshore for a particular management style is implausible.<\/p>\n<p>In no. 4, I noted a quotation reported in an excellent article by Joe Schoffstall in the\u00a0<em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cSouthern Poverty Law Center Transfers Millions in Cash to Offshore Entities,\u201d\u00a0August 31, 2017).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve never known a US-based nonprofit dealing in human rights or social services to have any foreign bank accounts,\u201d said Amy Sterling Casil, CEO of Pacific Human Capital, a California-based nonprofit consulting firm . . . \u00a0I am stunned to learn of transfers of millions to offshore bank accounts. It is a huge red flag and would have been completely unacceptable to any wealthy, responsible, experienced board member who was committed to a charitable mission who I ever worked with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is unethical for any US-based charity to invest large sums of money overseas,\u201d said Casil. \u201cI know of no legitimate reason for any US-based nonprofit to put money in overseas, unregulated bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fastforward to the present: in the 990 dealing with the year ending October 31, 2024, the $PLC again admits to having a foreign bank account but curiously fails to answer the follow-up question about that bank account\u2019s location. However, in the section disclosing \u201cActivities Outside The United States,\u201d it does report having \u201cInvestments\u201d of $30.7 million in the \u201cCentral America and the Caribbean\u201d region. Maybe not answering the account location question was a clerical error.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I wrote no. 3 in 2011, I was able to report what the SPLC was doing with these enormous liquid resources.<\/p>\n<p>It was making them illiquid and non-transparent\u2014by moving them into\u00a0\u201calternative investments,\u201d investment partnerships of various types. In 2009, 75.4 percent of the investment portfolio was so deployed, up from 49 percent in 2008\u2014by 2010, the proportion was up to 87 percent\u2014i.e., substantially all of it.<\/p>\n<p>This policy has been maintained. The latest $PLC Financial Statement, for the year ending October 31, 2024, indicates the proportion described as \u201clong-term investments\u201d was 94.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Why the $PLC has chosen to tie its capital up in this illiquid way is a puzzle to me. In fact, why it has chosen to amass so much money at all is also a mystery. Personal enrichment seems, I think, to be ruled out by the extremely rigorous nature of the 990 (assuming there is not outright misrepresentation). And it has to be said that the salaries paid to senior executives, while high perhaps for inexpensive Montgomery, AL, are not huge by nonprofit standards. Margaret Huang, president and CEO during the latest reporting period, was paid a total of just $522,740. And the directors have never been paid fees. Far more egregious cases exist in the world of charities.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps\u00a0Morris Dees, the founder of the $PLC, and\u00a0J. Richard Cohen, the long-time president, the architects of this strange organization, enjoyed being money managers and effectively Fund-of Fund\u00a0executives? It is certainly a pleasant life.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=352\">How the Machine Buried Spencer Pratt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A little more than 20 years ago, the $PLC began an important shift in targeting. Their key fundraising base, which Peter Brimelow has described as \u201cthe elderly Holocaust-haunted rich,\u201d was dying off. And more or less every White man in the South was aware that anyone purporting to be a recruiter for any Ku Klux Klan outfit was probably an FBI agent provocateur. The low-hanging fruit had been harvested.<\/p>\n<p>So the $PLC\u00a0took up immigration, targeting even the most timid and professionally ineffectual immigration patriot outfits. Thus, after it had existed for 29 years, the $PLC finally named the biggest, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a \u201chate group\u201d (VDARE.com was proud to accept this accolade after only 4 years!). I discussed this event and FAIR\u2019s characteristically inept reply in\u00a0<em>FAIR On The SPLC: Nice Guys Get Smeared Some More\u00a0<\/em>09-14-2009.<\/p>\n<p>Immigrants themselves, of course, were useless as a fundraising field. But the Democrat Nomenklatura had woken up to the point made in\u00a0Peter Brimelow\u2019s 1995 book\u00a0<em>Alien Nation<\/em>\u2014that American immigration policy was\u00a0\u201cElecting a New People,\u201d with them as the primary beneficiaries. By the middle of the next decade, Democrat Party policy had reached the current \u2018No Borders\u2019 stance. Many of the Democratic plutocrats, driven anyway\u00a0as they usually are\u00a0by anti-Historic American animus, were happy to pay the $PLC to protect this trend.<\/p>\n<p>The $PLC was a particularly valuable hire in this respect because of the role\u00a0it fallaciously claimed to have played in the sacred \u201cCivil Rights\u201d movement. The mainstream media effectively accorded its pronouncements something like papal infallibility. Being declared a hate group in the ensuing reign of terror\/ cancel culture years meant journalists were afraid to quote such a source. Increasingly, a whole range of normal commercial services would be denied. Even supposedly conservative outfits like\u00a0<em>Human Events<\/em>\u00a0shamefully\u00a0drank the Kool-Aid.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, in no. 3, I said:<\/p>\n<p>The $PLC is in effect a modest public interest law firm and fundraising operation, linked to a very large, wildly aggressive investment pool. It\u2019s really theSouthern Poverty Law and Investing Center!<\/p>\n<p>But the ensuing years made clear I should have\u00a0<em>said Southern Poverty Law, Investing\u00a0<strong>&amp; Political Police<\/strong>\u00a0Center.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Recently, however, the tide has turned against the $PLC. From about 2010, with the American Family Council (AFA) and the\u00a0Family Research Council (FRC), it started naming various Christian organizations \u201chate groups\u201d for their views on sexuality and abortion\u2014transparently in a quest for homosexual money. This puzzled and offended many normies. Then, in June 2018, the $PLC issued an apology and paid $3.375 million to UK citizen Maajid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation for accusing him of being an anti-Muslim extremist.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, in 2019, disaster really struck. To quote the\u00a0current Wikipedia page\u00a0on the Southern Poverty Law Center:<\/p>\n<p>In March 2019, the SPLC fired founder Morris Dees for undisclosed reasons and removed his profile from the SPLC website . . . \u00a0Following the dismissal, a letter signed by two dozen SPLC employees was sent to management, expressing concern that \u201callegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A week later, President Richard Cohen and legal director Rhonda Brownstein announced their resignations . . . The associate legal director Meredith Horton quit, alleging concerns regarding workplace culture.<\/p>\n<p>Since Dees had been canonized by the Left as a secular saint, with some idiots actually making a movie about him, this was a massive blow. The $PLC staffers were certainly right to say it threatened \u201cthe moral authority of this organization and our integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-363\" height=\"351\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-363\" height=\"351\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9b808e6cc55451b3e90dcf164f76de15-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>$PLC co-founder Morris Dees<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In his\u00a0resignation statement, Cohen spoke reverently of an upcoming \u201caudit of the organization\u2019s practices\u201d by Tina Tchen, former Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama. But if completed, this report has never been made public.<\/p>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-364\" height=\"294\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4724b38ac1332d7bbed42503071d9f37.jpg\" width=\"250\"\/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-364\" height=\"294\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4724b38ac1332d7bbed42503071d9f37.jpg\" width=\"250\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>$PLC President J. Richard Cohen<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Such was the revulsion on the Left that\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0was emboldened to publish\u00a0\u201cThe Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center\u201dby Bob Moser (March 21, 2019). This is a macabre account of the pervasive atmosphere of financial and sexual exploitation at the $PLC\u2019s \u201cPoverty Palace\u201d headquarters in Montgomery, AL.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, it would have been better for America if Moser and a publication like\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0had possessed the moral fiber to publish this expose back when Moser left the outfit in 2004. But that would have destroyed Moser\u2019s career and been politically inconvenient.<\/p>\n<p>Human failings are one thing; political embarrassments are quite another. Margaret Huang, imported in April 2020 as president and CEO, supplied these in plenty.<\/p>\n<p>Before Huang arrived, the organization had, somewhat paradoxically for a leftist outfit, indicated that it was determined to\u00a0prevent its staff from unionizing. But discontent was such that management\u2019s effort failed. Then, after the October 7, 2023, Gaza offensive, there was apparently a huge surge of pro-Palestinian sentiment among the (naturally highly politicized) staff. Huang responded in June 2024 by firing a quarter of them and shutting down some flagship programs. With money so plentiful, cost was not plausibly the reason. More likely these programs had particularly anti-Zionist staff.<\/p>\n<p>I dealt with these important events in:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\u201cThe $PLC Massacre\u2014Purging Pro-Palestinians?\u201d (June 14, 2024)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cNow I See Why $PLC Dumped Classroom Propaganda Program: Left\u2019s Palestinian Purge Problem Just Beginning\u201d\u00a0(June 18, 2024)<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSPLC Union Strikes Another Shattering Blow at $PLC. But Is This a Labor or a Political Dispute?\u201d\u00a0(June 20, 2024)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-365\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-365\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a.jpg\" width=\"624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a.jpg 624w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f0d92fabaf69af0c28b2deb74d82088a-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 624px) 100vw, 624px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>From X account of SPLC union\u2014challenging management\u2019s account<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In fact, this was an early sign of\u00a0the epochal split\u00a0between the senior Democratic politicians and their Zionist donors, on the one hand, and the hard Left and younger zealots, on the other. We are going to hear a great deal more about this.<\/p>\n<p>In July 2025, Huang abruptly resigned.\u00a0Bryan Fair, a black University of Alabama Law professor, was appointed interim CEO. He has explicitly said he is acting as a figurehead. As of May 2026, no permanent CEO has been appointed.<\/p>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-366\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c.jpg\" width=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c.jpg 500w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-366\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c.jpg\" width=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c.jpg 500w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/78e4ad427c384fa43eabccc7b87e6e8c-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p><em>Bryan Fair, Interim President and CEO, Southern Poverty Law Center<\/em><\/p>\n<p>So where does this leave the $PLC, with its financial and corporate governance under serious question, its liberal credentials badly damaged, and its federal indictment for bank and wire fraud (and, probably as an automatic consequence of the indictments, donor-advised funds\u00a0refusing to allow donations)?<\/p>\n<p>Basically, it leaves it in the hands of blacks\u2014at least ostensibly.<\/p>\n<p>What might be called a black curtain of secrecy has come down over the\u00a0SPLC website. It has been simplified, with all information on and pictures of directors and senior officers removed and financial information now buried in a sidebar. In the \u201cAnnual Report\u201d and \u201cImpact Statement\u201d (both of which have always been just sales brochures), almost all pictures are of blacks alone, with only one showing whites (in a street scene). This is a big departure from the traditionally carefully diverse illustrations of the past. Judging from a screenshot\u00a0from March 29, 2024, posted above, blacks are in the majority.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, as recently as 2018, there were only three black members out of 13.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the $PLC logo has been changed. The new one, appropriately, is black and white.<\/p>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-367\" height=\"183\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86.png\" width=\"612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86.png 612w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86-300x90.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/figure>\n<noscript>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-367\" height=\"183\" src=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86.png\" width=\"612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86.png 612w, https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6fd261be73b21d59844b202931541b86-300x90.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/noscript><\/p>\n<p>This probably tells us the ultimate fate of the $PLC. Footnote 13 of the 2024 Consolidated Financial Statements reports:<\/p>\n<p>During the year end[ing on] October 31, 2020, the Board of Directors approved $30 million from the Endowment Fund for the Vote Your Voice initiative . . . the Board of Directors approved a $100 million investment from the Endowment Fund over the next decade to support voter outreach . . . The commitment . . . marks a more-than-threefold increase . . . pledged in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The total Vote Your Voice expense for the year ending on October 31, 2024, was $14,068,100 (total $41,964,614 for four years).<\/p>\n<p>This does not directly state when the increase was voted.<\/p>\n<p>I do not believe that any distributions from the \u201cEndowment Fund\u201d were ever allowed when Morris Dees was in control (ended 2019).<\/p>\n<p>Vote Your Voice is a $PLC initiative to boost the black and brown vote in the South.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, it is axiomatic and has been underlined by the recent Somali and BLM funding scandals (see here\u00a0and\u00a0here\u00a0and\u00a0here) that showering money on black-controlled outfits just enables fraud.<\/p>\n<p>So maybe the obsessive money-grubbing of Morris Dees will finally improve the fortunes of at least<em>some<\/em>\u00a0in the black community?<\/p>\n<p>* * *<\/p>\n<p><em>This is a modified version of an article that was originally published on May 22, 2026, on Substack. Peter Brimelow: Patrick Cleburne was one of\u00a0VDARE.com\u2019s most valued contributors (his archive\u00a0here). I particularly liked his analyses of the SPLC\u2019s finances\u2014he was the first to discover that it had an offshore bank account\u2014but he refused to update them because he got bored by its apparent invincibility. Now he has been inspired to return. Sign up for his free Substack, where he is free at last from my inhibiting editorial hand,\u00a0here.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Patrick Cleburne is a Wall Streeter and was a long-time contributor to VDARE.com until it was lawfared into suspension by New York Attorney General Letitia James.<\/em><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=350\">Karmelo Anthony Found Guilty of Murdering Austin Metcalf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black people, POCs, now majority of $PLC board We at VDARE always followed the lead of our old friend Paul Craig Roberts in believing that the bank fraud\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-radical-left"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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