secede sign two.jpg

A billboard ad with the word 'Secede' was put up on Interstate 85 in Montgomery on Friday but was removed after complaints. The League of the South, which paid for the ad, wants it restored. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the League of the South as one of the 22 hate groups currently active in the state of Alabama.

The League of the South has garnered media attention in recent weeks due to a protest outside of SPLC's Montgomery headquarters and "Secede" billboards the group put up in Tallahassee, Fla. and Montgomery.

The Montgomery billboard was up for only a couple days before Lamar Advertising decided to take it down due to advertiser complaints.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at SPLC, says the League of the South is "clearly on the decline" since its 1994 formation.

He said the group's peak was in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The group would like boast a membership of about 30,000, but Potok says it is about half that.

According to the SPLC, Wetumpka-based League of the South is a neo-Confederate group that advocates for the South to secede from the rest of the United States for a second time.

The League believes the South should be run by the white elite.

The League of the South calls itself a Southern Nationalist organization whose "ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic," according to its website.

To accomplish this goal, the group says it must:

Expose the corruption, stupidity and self-destructive mentality of the current government in Washington,

Show its willingness to be servant-leaders to the Southern people

Make the League of the South a strong, viable organization that will lead us to Southern independence.

The goal of the League's new billboard campaign? According to its website, the goal is to simply make travelers aware of the group and its 20-year mission for the South to secede from the U.S.

The League is currently asking its members to give financially to its billboard campaign to meets its annual goal of $12,000.

The SPLC says the League was originally founded by a group that included many Southern university professors.

At the time, the Group's founder, Michael Hill, was a British history professor and specialist in Celtic history at Stillman College, which is a historically black school in Tuscaloosa.

As the League became more racist, most of the academics left the group, Potok said.

In the late 1990s, Hill publicly defended antebellum slavery as "God-ordained" and another league leader described segregation as necessary to racial "integrity" of both races, black and white alike, according to SPLC.

SPLC didn't classify the League of the South as a hate group until 2000, when the number of members grew to 9,000. Membership then quickly grew to 15,000.

Potok said the League is against interracial and gay marriage.

"These groups are desperate," he said. "They can hardly believe how acceptance of gay marriage has grown across the country."

A few years ago, Potok said Hill told members to hoard weapons and ammunition.

"Now, they very much trying to moderate their public image," he said.

The League has adopted a dress code, which includes no jeans, the wearing of belts and shirttails tucked in.

"They are not allowed to make their own signs," Potok said. "Now they have very benign signs."

List of Hate Groups active in Alabama, according to SPLC: