Samford's Sociology Department will host an examination of U.S. extremist/hate groups with speaker Mark Potok April 16 at 7 p.m. in Brooks Hall Auditorium.

Potok, Senior Fellow at Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC,) is one of the country’s leading experts on the world of extremism and serves as the editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s award-winning, quarterly journal, the Intelligence Report, its Hatewatch blog, and its investigative reports.

Journalists often cite Potok's work and he has testified before the U.S. Senate, the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and in other venues.

Before joining the SPLC staff in 1997, Potok spent 20 years as an award-winning journalist at major newspapers, including USA Today, the Dallas Times Herald and The Miami Herald. While at USA Today, he covered the 1993 Waco siege, the rise of militias, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the trial of Timothy McVeigh.

The Samford event is free-of-charge and open to the public.