The focus of tolerance education is to deal with the concept of

When Morris Dees said, “The focus of tolerance education is to deal with the concept of equality and fairness. We need to establish confidence with children that there is more goodness than horror in this world,” he was speaking as a man who had seen both the darkness and the light within humanity. His words carry the weight of experience — not born of theory, but of struggle, of standing at the front lines of hatred and choosing compassion over fear. In these words, Dees — the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center — reveals the heart of his life’s work: that the battle for justice does not begin in the courtroom, nor in the streets, but in the minds of the young. For only by teaching children to see the world through the lens of fairness and equality can we hope to build a civilization that chooses empathy over cruelty.

The origin of this quote lies in Dees’s efforts to combat racial hatred and bigotry in America. Having faced violent opposition from white supremacist groups, he learned that laws alone cannot cleanse the soul of a nation. True change begins with education — with teaching hearts before laws can govern hands. “Tolerance education,” as he called it, is not merely about instructing children to accept differences; it is about cultivating the inner confidence that humanity is still capable of goodness, even in a world where cruelty too often dominates the headlines. Dees understood that the greatest tragedy of injustice is not only the harm it inflicts, but the hopelessness it plants in the minds of the innocent.

His statement reflects the ancient principle that a nation’s future is shaped by the virtues it teaches its children. The ancients believed that moral education was the foundation of civilization — that the young must learn not only to read and reason, but to feel rightly. Plato taught that justice in the city begins with justice in the soul, and Dees echoes that same truth: the spirit of fairness must be nurtured early, before prejudice hardens the heart. In teaching equality, we are not simply giving children moral lessons — we are preserving the balance of the world, ensuring that compassion endures where hatred would otherwise take root.

Consider the story of Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African American girl who, in 1960, became the first to integrate an all-white school in New Orleans. Every morning, she walked through mobs of angry protesters hurling slurs and threats. Yet she entered her classroom with grace and courage, guided by the quiet belief that goodness could prevail over hate. Her teacher, Barbara Henry, treated her with fairness and love — and in that act of tolerance, an entire generation learned what it meant to see beyond color. Ruby’s story is the living embodiment of Dees’s words: a reminder that the faith we instill in children — the belief that kindness is stronger than cruelty — can change the course of history.

In saying that we must help children see that “there is more goodness than horror in this world,” Dees speaks to the crisis of perception that haunts every generation. When young hearts see only division and despair, they lose faith in humanity’s capacity to rise above its worst impulses. But when they are taught to look for goodness — to recognize the countless acts of compassion that sustain life each day — they begin to carry the torch of hope. This is not naive optimism; it is the discipline of faith in the human spirit, the same faith that has guided all great reformers, from Mahatma Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr., through the valleys of suffering toward the mountaintops of justice.

The focus on equality and fairness, as Dees describes, is not just a moral obligation — it is the foundation of peace. When children learn that every person, regardless of race, religion, or origin, deserves dignity, they grow into adults who build bridges instead of walls. Tolerance education is not passive acceptance; it is the active cultivation of empathy, the practice of seeing oneself in another. It teaches that fairness is not weakness, but strength — that equality is not a concession, but the truest form of wisdom.

Let this teaching be carried forward: to shape a just world, we must begin with the hearts of children. Let every parent, teacher, and leader remember that the stories we tell, the examples we live, and the kindness we practice are the seeds from which the next age of humanity will grow. If we show the young that goodness endures — even in a world scarred by cruelty — we arm them with the most powerful weapon of all: faith in one another. And when they, in turn, pass that faith to their children, the circle of tolerance widens, and the light of fairness will forever outshine the shadow of hate.