Event draws rights leader

EVERETT – Civil rights leader Morris Dees, who has helped bankrupt several hate groups, will address an assembly at Arlington High School Jan. 13, nearly a year after two Arlington students burned a cross on the lawn of a black pastor’s house.

Dees also will be the keynote speaker at the Snohomish County Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration in Everett the same day.

Two Arlington High School students pleaded guilty earlier this year to burning a cross in March in front of the home of pastor Jason Martin. Several students who organized a unity rally after the cross-burning will introduce Dees at the assembly.

Martin said Dees’ appearance “is a good step in the right direction to bring awareness to our young people. And it’s not just students who need education. It’s teachers as well. They don’t know how to address the minority kids who are coming into the area.”

County Executive Aaron Reardon said he hopes Dees’ message will help educate Arlington students about the importance of tolerance.

“I think he’s a hero,” Reardon said of Dees. “He’s a person who’s stood for equality, who’s practiced tolerance, who’s taken on hatred and prevailed.”

Dees is chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he helped found in Montgomery, Ala., in 1971.

The group tracks hate groups and fights them in court. It also trains law-enforcement officers and distributes anti-bias educational materials to schools across the country.

Dees’ legal work helped lead to multimillion-dollar judgments against a group of Oregon skinheads who murdered an Ethiopian immigrant in 1988, and against the Aryan Nations, the White Aryan Resistance and the Ku Klux Klan.

Organizers of the county celebration started planning the Jan. 13 events shortly after this year’s commemoration, said Kate Reardon, public information officer for Everett and co-chairwoman of the celebration. Kate Reardon is the wife of Aaron Reardon.

“When we started talking about the names of people we want, his name came up, and we immediately said, ‘That’s absolutely who we want,’ ” she said.

Dees’ appearance at Arlington High School and the Everett Events Center ballroom will take place four days before the Jan. 17 Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

The events center appearance is sponsored by the city of Everett, the county and the Snohomish County YMCA.

Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.

King Day events

Several events will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January. The national holiday is Jan. 17. The Snohomish County commemorations will be Jan. 13.

* Diversity Partnering Breakfast, sponsored by United Way, 7 a.m. at Everett Station, 3201 Smith Ave.

The Martin Luther King “Prodigies for Peace” school essay contest winners will be announced. Space is limited to 125 people. To sign up, call Everett public information officer Kate Reardon at 425-257-8687 or e-mail kreardon@ci.everett.wa.us.

* Morris Dees, co-founder and chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., will speak at Arlington High School at 10 a.m.

* A community march will take place in downtown Everett at noon.

* Dees will speak at the Everett Events Center at 1 p.m. Admission is free, but space is limited to a capacity crowd of about 720.

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