...[SPLC co-founder–cum–chief trial counsel Morris] Dees, who earned a spot in (I’m not making this up) the Direct Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame for his service to the cause of pitching birthday cakes, cookbooks, tractor-seat cushions, and other junk-mail items, is "more than a little Trumpian himself," according to Politico. "I learned everything I know about hustling from the Baptist Church," Dees once said, according to a 2000 piece that Silverstein wrote for Harper’s. "Spending Sundays on those hard benches listening to the preacher pitch salvation ‐ why, it was like getting a Ph.D. in selling." Dees’s onetime business partner Millard Fuller told Silverstein, "Morris and I . . . shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money. We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich."
Dees once told his donors that he would stop fundraising when the SPLC endowment reached $55 million. When the SPLC blew by that milestone, he upped it to $100 million. Today it continues to build its huge endowment while its six-story, multi-million-dollar headquarters is "the most architecturally striking structure in downtown Montgomery," according to Politico.
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