Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to give keynote address at The Foundations of a Movement 2005: An Animal Rights Conference.

Now more than ever, political and cultural stress prompts us to ask:

What is the relationship between animal advocacy and the non-violent movement to eradicate prejudice?

How does frustration with the slow pace of change create reactionary views in the midst of a movement that seeks kindness?

Mark PotokThe Southern Poverty Law Center knows something about peaceful change — and about the line between the revolutionary and the reactionary. Its Intelligence Report is the nation’s preëminent periodical monitoring the radical right in the U.S.

Lately, the Intelligence Report has pinpointed issues of concern to environmentalists and animal activists.

In 2002, the Intelligence Report ran a critique of what it called the eco-radical movement, writing: “Radical environmental and animal-rights groups have always drawn the line at targeting humans. Not anymore.”

The same year, the Intelligence Report included a feature on the U.S. immigration controversy in environmental groups. Southern Poverty Law’s exposés regarding the Sierra Club’s controversial elections culminated in direct involvement in the election to persuade Club members to stop the “greening of hate.”

On the topic of “homegrown terror,” Mark Potok, the Intelligence Report’s editor, has recently spoken on National Public Radio, CNN Live, Newsnight and Anderson Cooper 360.

Mark Potok will address the most controversial issues of our time at Friends of Animals’ forthcoming conference Foundations of a Movement (9-10 July in Manhattan), including a Keynote Presentation on Saturday 9 July.