 |
The SPLC continued its mission as a catalyst for racial justice in 2023... friend, The Southern Poverty Law Center continued its mission as a catalyst for racial justice in 2023, refusing to back down from challenges and a difficult environment for many of the communities we serve. Here is a look back at a few key accomplishments from another busy year. We strengthened our focus on local communities with the launch of our Alabama state office. The new office is part of an expansion of the SPLC’s efforts to work in deep partnership with communities as we fight injustice and inequality across the South. It is the second such office, following the opening of the Mississippi office in 2022. The goal is to help form a more powerful advocacy network to confront longstanding racial and economic inequities. We helped preserve historic Black communities in 2023. The SPLC helped combat a development plan targeting the historic Black community of Eatonville, Florida. We also urged historic designation of Royal, Florida. The hope is that this work will help uphold the dignity of place and people while creating economic opportunities from which everyone benefits. It’s an important issue as communities of color often face the threat of land loss through development and other issues. In a nation known as the world’s leader in incarceration, we fought the criminalization of Black and Brown people. A settlement in an SPLC case at an immigrant detention center in Georgia marked a step toward ending abuses at for-profit immigrant prisons. At the United Nations in Geneva, the SPLC highlighted the issue of solitary confinement, an excessive and particularly brutal practice that is especially prevalent in the states we serve. We fought the criminalization of poverty on multiple fronts. Our intervention ended criminal prosecutions over late trash bills in the small Alabama town of Valley. The SPLC also continued to push back against laws criminalizing unhoused people, securing a federal injunction against two Alabama statutes that criminalized soliciting donations and begging. The SPLC continued combating hate and extremism. In 2023, we documented 1,225 hate and antigovernment extremist groups operating across the U.S. We also highlighted the rising threat of anti-student inclusion groups that use the banner of “parents’ rights” to erase Black history from schools, ban books and censor educators teaching diversity, among other issues opposed by these groups. Sincerely, Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
|
||
| |
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
