Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends?

Those words were immortalized in song, and even though we all know them, sometimes the answer is still hard to find.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center will lecture at Samford April 16 about hate groups.

If you are having trouble finding the answer to that question you should come to Mark Potok’s lecture at Samford University tonight, Monday, April 16, at 7 p.m.

The lecture is sponsored the Department of Sociology and will be held in Brooks Hall Auditorium

Potok is a senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), based in Montgomery, Ala.

The SPLC’s mission is “fighting hate and bigotry and seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.”

Potok is the editor in chief of the SPLC’s quarterly magazine, Intelligence Report, which monitors far-right groups and activities in the United States, and is the editor of the Hatewatch blog.

In this lecture, Potok will discuss the alarming upward trend in hate and extremist groups as well as the achievements of the SPLC in stopping these groups.

So stop by this free lecture to learn more about what you can do to stop the hate, because no one should be hurt for being different.

To learn more about the SPLC, visit www.splcenter.org.

Janine Mwenja is a Weld Local contributor. Send your feedback to editor@weldbham.com.