Dedicated to tolerance

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., will spend next weekend dedicating its new Civil Rights Memorial Center and Wall of Tolerance.

The dedication of the Memorial Center and the new Wall of Tolerance is a highlight of the National Campaign for Tolerance, an initiative begun by the Center five years ago that served as a vehicle to mobilize Center supporters and others into a community of activists. To date, more than a quarter-million people have enlisted at the campaign.

Beyond Center-sponsored events, the more than 2,000 Center supporters who have said they will attend the dedication will be able to attend a variety of events elsewhere in Montgomery that weekend.

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The Civil Rights Memorial Center allows visitors to deepen their understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, the sacrifices of that period and the struggles that continue today. The facility contains a theater and classroom, where students are challenged to consider their personal responsibility to work for justice.

Before leaving the Memorial Center, visitors can make a public commitment to the ideals of the Movement by adding their names to the Wall of Tolerance, a 20-by-40-foot surface with thousands of floating, digitally-projected names.

By the way, my name is one of those digitally projected and floating along this 20-by-40-foot surface.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's programs help promote tolerance and track the movements of hate groups in America. The history of tolerance in the civil rights movement is intertwined with the activist churches of the American South, but some of these hate groups have strong ties to Christian churches, too.

These Christian Identity groups "assert that whites, not Jews, are the true Israelites favored by God in the Bible." In fact, some of these groups operate alongside racists skinheads and neo-Nazis right here in Washington. The Center's Intelligence Project details accounts of racist slurs spray-painted on garage doors, dorm rooms vandalized with anti-gay slurs, neo-Nazi marches, cross burnings and distribution of hate literature in neighborhoods.

Likely on the Center's list of groups to watch is the band of Christian extremists from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kans., and its main loudmouth, Fred Phelps, and his band of relatives who spout their "gospel" in the name of an angry God. His kind of Christianity is clearly outside of the mainstream, yet clearly people support him and his tactics as his Web site and travels are funded somehow.

My next donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center might be in honor of Fred Phelps. He needs all the help toward tolerance that he can get. Maybe the tolerant Christians speaking next weekend in Montgomery can give Phelps a few lessons in loving thy neighbor.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.