As civil rights lawyer Morris Dees shared his vision of a united country, men from distant lands were planning the final details of suicide and mass murder, which they would commit the next morning, Sept. 11.

Dees’ Sept. 10 words, given in a packed Ed Landreth Auditorium, seemed prophetic the next day as the world watched in horror the direct results of hatred.

“There is a battle going on over whose America this is and whose version of America is going to prevail,” Dees said. “And there will be those who will go to supreme efforts to make sure their viewpoints will prevail.”

Dees was the fourth distinguished speaker in the annual Gates of Chai Lecture sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at TCU. His message of tolerance and acceptance received a standing ovation.

Dees, the son of an Alabama Jewish cotton-gin operator, is a life-long champion of civil rights. Co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, he won some of the largest litigation cases in the country against hate crimes and the Ku Klux Klan.

During his September address, Dees said that we must build bridges, not divides.

“Those bridges will be built from friendship, love and understanding,” he said in his soft Southern drawl. “When people can learn to talk instead of fighting, then I think we might have a chance.”

The Gates of Chai Lectureship was created and endowed by Gates of Chai Inc., in memory of Larry Kornbleet and family members of Stanley and Marcia Kornbleet Kurtz who perished in the Holocaust. Additional support has been received from Harold Ginsburg and Robert Ginsburg, in memory of Marcus Ginsburg.