Southern Legal Resource Center
The Southern Legal Resource Center, Inc. (SLRC) is a South Carolina non-profit public law corporation which offers legal support to victims of First Amendment violations, violation of civil rights or illegal discrimination involving Southern Heritage.
HISTORY
The SLRC was founded in 1995 by a group of four attorneys: Carl A. Barrington (deceased), Kirk David Lyons, Larry Norman, and Lourie A. Salley, III. Lyons was appointed Chief Trial Counsel, a position he still holds, and Salley became the firm's first Board Chairman. The organization is a registered South Carolina corporation with its executive offices in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
The SLRC scored early victories in the late 1990’s when in 1996 it successfully defended the “Blacksburg (SC) 7” and in 1999 sued a Greenville, South Carolina, private academy on behalf of Dr. Winston McCuen, a teacher at the school who had been fired for refusing to remove a Confederate flag that was part of a classroom historical display, and for refusing to salute the US in protest.
The SLRC, was the first law firm to promote a novel legal theory developed by Chief Trial Counsel Lyons that combined First Amendment protection with an interpretation of “National Origin” provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would afford federal legal protection for what Lyons termed “Confederate Southern Americans.” Using this interpretation of Civil Rights law, the SLRC undertook cases on behalf of Federal Aviation Administration workers in Florida, utility company employees in South Carolina, workers at a DuPont plant in Virginia (the "DuPont Seven"), and Cherokee students in Alabama. Federal judges have shown an almost universal hostility to legal protection or even recognition for “Confederate Southern Americans,” but Lyons and the SLRC still cheerlead for the group noting the increase of job-related persecution of “Confederate Southern Americans” and the absolute paucity of legal protection in the workplace save for cases that come under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The problem with successful advocacy of this group, as noted by Chief Trial Counsel Lyons is that “Republican judges are adamantly opposed to any extension of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Democratic Judges are hostile to almost all things Confederate.” Lyons believes that Confederate Southern Americans are a viable National Origin group that can break through the legal barrier once they break through the political barrier that belittles and divides them.
The SLRC has set the standard for student free speech advocacy involving Confederate symbols. Its most significant victory to date has been Castorina v. Madison County Schools, in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2001 overturned a federal district court's ruling in favor of a Kentucky school board's ban on student displays of Confederate symbols, and remanded the case for further proceedings.[1] In 2006 the Castorina decision led to an out-of-court award of damages for Jacqueline Duty, an SLRC client who had sued her own school board after she was barred from attending her high school prom in a Confederate flag-patterned evening gown. It has drawn extensive fire from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has frequently attacked the SLRC by citing Lyons' pre-SLRC defense of some controversial right-wing figures such as Aryan Nations members, WAR founder Tom Metzger[2] and Lyons 1990 marriage to the sister of jailed Order defendant David Tate.
The SLRC Board has defended Lyons pre-SLRC work by noting that it is ancient history and that his successful high profile criminal conspiracy cases were David vs Goliath cases that gave him the necessary courtroom skills and savvy needed to defend the Confederate Community. Lyons has said repeatedly that his practice was successful because of his policy of not representing a defendant at trial unless he was convinced of his innocence. In the Metzger case, Lyons signed on only after the SPLC prevented Metzger from paying his attorney, Jewish civil rights activist Michael Null of Chicago. “If it’s OK for Null to represent Metzger, it should be OK for me,” Lyons said at the time. As to his marriage at Aryan Nations, Lyons says: “ I fell in love, it happened to be at AN. I ‘ve been happily married for 20 years. If my wife’s Father was the local moonshiner and I had go to the County jail to marry her, I would do it!” Lyons quips.
In addition the SPLC has called Southern Legal's fundraising practices “deceitful” citing, for example, "the SLRC Web site detailed two disputes under a headline that read "Cases Pending," implying that the SLRC represented the parties involved. In both cases, the plaintiff's families say Lyons actually did very little for them."[3] The SLRC responds to these charges by noting that in both cases the SLRC did represent the clients and that the SPLC did not talk to the clients but with other family members unknowledgeable with the facts. In the first case a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the client by SLRC Director Carl Barrington and in the other, the client’s mother, a material witness, was murdered and her grieving surviving family members were not enthusiastic about pursuing a lawsuit.[4]
In 1997 Kirk Lyons and SLRC Director Neill Payne befriended Asheville NAACP President H.K. Edgerton and brought him into the Confederate Community. In retaliation to this burgeoning friendship, the NAACP deprived Edgerton of his presidency. Edgerton became a “born-again Confederate and for a time served as an SLRC Director and Chairman of the SLRC’s Board of Advisors. (Footnote: SLRC Corporate minutes) The SPLC also criticized Lyons tie to Deborah Davila's FBI espionage case.[5] However, a federal jury acquitted Davila on all espionage charges and only convicted her of lying to the FBI.[6] In fact, Lyons went to the FBI when the story broke, cooperated in the investigation and his wife testified as a federal witness at Davila’s trial.[7]
In 2004 the SLRC hired advertising executive and Southern activist Roger McCredie as its full-time Executive Director. Under McCredie the organization doubled the size of its Board of Directors, increased its advertising program and undertook an ambitious five-year growth and development plan.[8]
In 1997 Kirk Lyons and SLRC Director Neill Payne befriended Asheville NAACP President H.K. Edgerton and brought him into the Confederate Community. In retaliation to this burgeoning friendship, the NAACP deprived Edgerton of his presidency. Edgerton became a “born-again" Confederate and for a time served as an SLRC Director and Chairman of the SLRC’s Board of Advisors. [9
Board of Directors
Van R. Irion, Atty. Bernhard Thuersam Dr. Neill Payne Rick D. Wilkerson (deceased)
External links
Official Southern Legal Resource Center Website
Southern Poverty Law Center
Cashing in on the Confederacy
